


The Burden Of Your Blues

by staraflur



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-20
Updated: 2010-01-20
Packaged: 2017-10-06 12:29:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/53655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staraflur/pseuds/staraflur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Boarding school was about as expected – rich and stuck-up and boring – until a group of robed crazies try to make the school bully the vessel for their shiny blue diamond. Then there's suddenly a lot more in Merlin's life, like swords, spells and late-night room switches.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Burden Of Your Blues

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to I_Claudia,, Glass_Icarus, Rane_Ab and especially Oxymoronic, Kelene, Hermette and Miakun for all their help and kind words. Each and every one of you cause something none of the rest did, so consider yourselves all irreplaceable. To protect their good names, it should be said that I wrote a fair bit of this after they all looked it at, so remaining errors could very well beallll mine.   
> This was originally written for YelloeRainboe as part of Camelot Solstice.   
> This also has a soundtrack, not clear on the ettiquette for that here, though, so feel free to contact me about it :D

For some reason that in hindsight was obviously very stupid, Merlin had thought the trip to the Druid village would be useful. Enlightening, somehow, or comforting.

 

According to the vocal minority of British citizens who still said magic had once been part of everyday life, as much as farmers and doctors and the government, the Druids had been at the centre of it. Today, of course, they were just a sad remnant of the civilisation that had built the henges (proof! said that vocal minority). Just the guy going to the supermarket in a robe or the girl at school talking about paganism.

 

Still, he'd been hoping that he would _feel_ something here, because if that vocal minority was right, then Merlin might be the first person in hundreds of years who could actually do magic.

 

Of course, he only found those people in the robes, puttering about huts carrying out the menial tasks of medieval peasants and giving speeches to schoolchildren about being one with the earth.

 

Why he'd expected anything else from a trip endorsed by Uther Pendragon, who had gone so far in denouncing all possibility of magic that he refused to let it be mentioned in the courses at his top-tier second form, he couldn't now remember.

 

All he could do was was roll his eyes at Gwen when the woman lecturing them on modern uses for hemp fibre trailed off mid-sentence. From Gwen's other side, Morgana caught his eye and pulled a face, which he tried to replicate without looking like she still kind of filled him with pangs of anxiety. Since she did.

 

It was just that, not only was it bad enough being new when the majority of them had been in the same prestigious school for most of their lives, but he was quite obviously the scholarship kid who couldn't afford the school on his own, quite obviously clumsy and hapless and not excelling at any sports. Apparently, there had been a rumour that he was there as a fencing star, which even Merlin had laughed at when he'd heard. He supposed it had started because he'd almost immediately befriended Gwen, who was there for fencing -- one of the stars of the team, actually, with Morgana.

 

Morgana was tall and lovely, proud and fierce, a combination that would typically make Merlin her natural enemy at a school like this one, while Gwen was kind of the best person ever. Somehow it was nice even when she made a joke about one of the other students.

 

More than that, Morgana was the step-daughter of Uther Pendragon, who'd been frightening when he'd attended Merlin's interview, looking doubtfully down at his test scores and recommendation letters when Merlin stumbled on his own name – frightening long before he'd learnt that even professing a belief in magic might be enough to get him expelled from Uther's school. So that was enough for Merlin to keep his distance, or at least try; Gwen had already asked him once, concerned, if Morgana had offended him in some way.

 

She never had, of course. That honour was reserved for her step-brother, who as far as Merlin could tell was the most spoilt, big-headed bully this side of the Atlantic. In Merlin's short months at the school, Arthur and his goon squad had gone out of their way to make sure barely a day went by without something going wrong: detention because he was out of uniform after his laundry mysteriously got lost and was "found" in the dorm Arthur and his friends happened to live in; detention because his perfectly acceptable compound had somehow become volatile while he'd gone to put on gloves in Chemistry and caused an explosion that had resulted in the evacuation of the entire science building; kitchen duty for ten days because one of them had tripped him straight into the lunch monitor – right after he'd picked up a tray.

 

At most of those times, Merlin wished he'd never done two things. One, stand up to Arthur on the first day of school, when he'd been tormenting that absolute twit Morris, who'd later gone off on some hissy fit about how at least Arthur had noticed him before. Merlin had a suspicion Morris was a little obsessed with Arthur – he really thought he'd done Arthur a favour. Second, beat Arthur in chess the next day.

 

And yes, it had been a little rude of him to laugh at the move Arthur had made in his game against that ginger whose name he always forgot, but that hadn't really been grounds for Arthur to declare the game over and challenge Merlin, instead. It especially hadn't been grounds for the particularly amusing shade of red he'd turned after Merlin declared checkmate. Merlin wasn't even very good at chess. Arthur was just _bad_. He seemed to forget that his opponent also had a brain and would see through his transparent ploy to bait their bishop with his pawn into the range of his knight, and might set up a trap of their own before they pretended to spring his.

 

Revenge had come in the form of the single most painful class of Merlin's life: PE, in which Arthur had taken the instructor aside while Merlin watched, nervous in his scratchy unwashed kit. Somehow their planned run had turned into tennis lessons. Tennis lessons in which everyone in the class took group instruction from the teacher while Arthur, the school champion, gave one-on-one teaching to the new kid.

 

It was the first time Merlin had picked up a tennis racket, and consequently the last. He didn't know whether it had taken longer for rounded bruises to fade or the yellow fuzzy stains to finally wash out of his clothes.

 

And somehow fast-forwarding several months had them here: crowded into a fake wattle and daub shack – Merlin could see the beams in a few places -- Gwen and sort of Morgana his only actual friends and an antagonist out of the closest thing this damn school had to royalty. At least kings could be decapitated. Arthur, on the other hand, had one-upped Merlin's every attempt to stand up to him until he'd just given up and started a campaign of avoidance.

 

His campaign wasn't exactly successful, judging by the frequent detentions and the fact that somehow Arthur had volunteered _Merlin_ to demonstrate Mediaevel justice and serve time in the stocks before they retired back to their "camp" for dinner and then the night's activities, which proved of course to be another chance for showcasing athletic prowess, in the form of a massive game of manhunt, half their class with yellow ribbons on one wrist and the other half with blue.

 

Not only did Gwen, Morgana, and thus his only chance of actual camaraderie end up on the other team, but most of the knights of the prat table (Merlin's own creative naming, thank you very much) did, as well.

 

Just before the first whistle was blown, to give everyone thirty seconds to plan and hide before the second whistle started the game, he caught Arthur staring right at him. When he met Arthur's gaze, Arthur gave him a dark, predatory, grin, and then actually lifted one hand, extended his pointer and middle fingers in a vee, and then moved them straight in front of his own eyes before he pointed them both at Merlin's face.

 

"What?" Merlin said. "Who even _does_ that?"

 

The insult lost most of its power when there was no one to back him up, and when all it did was make Arthur's smirk grow.

 

At the first whistle, Merlin turned and made a beeline straight for the darkest woods he could find. Screw his team, most of them wouldn't even talk to him if Arthur Pendragon was around to glare at them for it.

 

The second whistle blew far too quickly, and he realised he hadn't been too intelligent in his choice to run in a straight line when he heard Arthur yelling, voice close.

 

It had never been said that Merlin Emrys was a fast runner. For all his long legs, he couldn't quite seem to figure out where to put them. Arthur Pendragon, on the other end, seemed to spend half his life running down line shots on the tennis court.

 

He crouched behind a tree, hoping his thunderous heartbeat and rushing breath weren't actually audible to anyone else, and waited. His ankle started to hurt and he felt sweat dripping down his face, which was ridiculous because it was actually a very brisk October evening, black crescent moon sky.

 

Silence. Maybe Arthur had given him more credit than he deserved and run off in another direction.

 

He stood slowly, easing out his crooked limbs and trying to remember which direction, exactly, he'd come from.

 

"Ha!" he heard, from far too close. Before his heart had even finished leaping from his chest, all the breath got knocked out of him and he was landing awkwardly on one side.

 

Instinctively, he flailed out with his arm and felt his elbow hit hard, the person above him crying out and letting up. He squirmed away, staggered up, and ran in what he hoped was the right way.

 

But then, he thought, what _was_ the right direction? Towards everyone else, where Arthur couldn't kill him and then probably get off on claiming self defence, or further away, where he could maybe hide? He didn't even know which one he'd picked.

 

"Emrys! You know I'm faster than you are, you might as well give up and save me the trouble!"

 

"Like hell!" he yelled back, then cursed his own stupidity and apparent weakness in resisting letting Arthur think he had the upper hand.

 

He didn't really have a way of knowing how far or how long he'd run in the country blackness, but he knew it was too far when the ground dropped out from under his feet, and he had time for barely a shout before he was rolling down a steep hill, totally without comprehension of where any of his limbs were. He hit hard when it evened out.

 

"Fuck," he cursed, and huffed out an enormous, frustrated sigh. Worst. Field trip. Ever.

 

Arthur had apparently maintained control down the incline, coming to a noisy, triumphant stop at the bottom and surveying Merlin's defeated sprawl with a smug raised eyebrow. Merlin didn't want to move, not even when Arthur moved closer, Merlin's impending doom with him.

 

"You've got," Arthur observed, crouching on Merlin's left side, "dirt. And leaves." He pressed a finger to the far side of Merlin's cheekbone, right by his ear, and Merlin could feel the gritty layer on his skin.

 

"Is that actually surprising to you?" he asked, wrinkling his nose in distaste, because the more he came back to awareness, the more he realised he actually had a squishy mess of leaves and mud _everywhere_.

 

"I'll just be," Arthur began, and leaned forward to jerk the wrist of Merlin's filthy jumper down. "What?"

 

"Other one, genius," Merlin said, defiantly straightening his arm to put it as far away as possible, because while he'd obviously capitulated, he didn't have to be a total wimp about it.

 

"We were supposed to put them on the left," Arthur said. "Genius." He leant back, but apparently it was just so that he could find a good angle to plant one knee on either side of Merlin's stomach and plop heavily down.

 

"I win."

 

"Oh my god," Merlin complained. "Fine, fine, you did. Can you get off me now?" He tried to squirm his way out again, but Arthur flexed the long muscles in his thighs, the same ones that stood out when he pivoted abruptly on the court to change directions after a return, and Merlin was well and truly pinned.

 

Arthur leant in again, grabbing Merlin's right elbow with one rough hand and pulling it up. He slid one finger under the plastic strip, in between the awkward one-handed bow Merlin had hastily executed and the point on Merlin's wrist where three smaller veins branched blue under his skin from the larger one. One sharp tug and it snapped. Arthur dropped his arm, but then he laid his hand back over Merlin's wrist on the ground.

 

"Yellow team forever," he gloated.

 

"You look terrible in yellow," Merlin retorted weakly.

 

"You'd look worse," Arthur returned. Probably true.

 

A long pause.

 

"You gave up," Arthur said abruptly, non sequitur and strangely accusatory.

 

"Not exactly," Merlin protested. "I got rid of you once. And now you've taken advantage of me after I've been laid low by mother nature."

 

"What?" said Arthur. "No, not… Tonight. At school. Why'd you stop?"

 

"Stop what?" Merlin asked. The general overheating from his panicked run combined with Arthur's legs firm against his side were making him very sweaty under his prickly wool jumper.

 

"At school," Arthur said again, flat firm tone that said Merlin should be getting it by now. "You stopped playing."

 

"Playing _what_?"

 

"It doesn't have a _name_," Arthur said. "Our game."

 

Merlin paused, genuinely confused. "Our… What? You mean the game where you and your trained pack of hyenas get me in trouble until the head of our year calls my mother and asks why my previous record didn't reflect that I was such a _problem child_? Most people call that bullying."

 

"It wasn't – why'd you get in trouble?"

 

"Let's see," Merlin said, lifting the free hand to tick along the counts with his fingers. "There was the near destruction of the lab, the frequent being out of uniform, the part where you made me ruin the dining hall monitor's uniform, the part where you hid all my books for a week, and then, yes, the other times you stole my laundry."

 

"But… We do that all the time. I did it to Leon and to Pell and some of it to Gareth. No one ever gets in trouble."

 

"Bloody hell," Merlin said, closing his eyes because he honestly didn't know whether this made everything worse or somehow better. "Arthur. Your father is on the board. You go to class in a building with your _name_ on it. Of course you're not getting in trouble."

 

Arthur sat back, weight shifting from his own knees to Merlin's torso. His grip slackened on Merlin's wrist. His face looked so comically confused that Merlin wished it wasn't too dark for his phone's camera. Or that it wasn't trapped under Arthur's heavy arse.

 

"You're… Oh."

 

"Yes," Merlin agreed. "Oh." He waited for Arthur to get up.

 

Arthur didn't. His face was thoughtful again, but his eyes far away, narrowed as if to focus on something.

 

The Merlin heard it, too.

 

"Is that… Chanting?"

"I think so," Arthur said. "Weird chanting, too. Come on."

 

He clambered off so quickly that it was almost like he'd never been there at all, except that Merlin could finally breathe in all the way again, and the rush of night air against the open space where Arthur's body had just been was cold.

 

Merlin too rolled up, pausing on his knees when the faraway voices suddenly crested. Arthur looked down at him and pulled him up by an arm.

 

"Let's go," he said, leading Merlin forward by the arm.

 

With the gradual rise in volume soon came the shaky, uneven flow of fire, and by the time it was close enough to smell, Arthur had slowed.

 

"Can you be _quiet_," he hissed, and Merlin glared back. He had been being quiet.

 

"Oh, how lovely," came another voice from the darkness, and Merlin might have been pleased by the shock on Arthur's face if he hadn't been sure his looked worse. "We were hoping for some guests."

 

\----

 

It was the hemp lady from that afternoon, only she'd traded in her plain homespun for something brighter, more ornate, and she was accompanied by a quartet of similarly attired men, three of whom Merlin recognised from the demonstrations earlier. They crowded in around Merlin and Arthur, and the woman smiled.

 

"You boys chose an excellent time to drop in, you know. We're just about to begin the selection ceremony."

 

"Selection for what?" Merlin asked.

 

"The festival's King, of course! I'm sure we can make room for two more… If you're interested?"

 

"We really should go back—"

 

"Of course we are," Arthur interrupted. "After all, aren't we here to further our education?"

 

"Excellent," she smiled. "The girls will be ever so pleased if you complete the tasks."

 

"Well, I wouldn't want to deny them _the pleasure_," Arthur said, with the smirk Merlin always wanted to wipe off his awful lovely mouth. With his fist.

 

There weren't many people in the wide, flat clearing, but there were some girls, who sighed rapturously when the hemp lady presented their new prospects. Personally, Merlin thought they all looked pretty ridiculous, eyelashes aflutter and long dark robes, but Arthur took right to it, learning all their names and complying when they asked him to flex his biceps or do a cartwheel.

 

He couldn't even do a good one, Merlin thought, disgusted at their chorus of giggles. One even sighed, "He's perfect!"

 

Perfectly revolting.

 

They'd drawn into a large clearing, dotted by small fires that were being progressively doused and the remaining blazes kindled proportionately higher. Beside the one that seemed to be in the centre, a heap of apples and a smaller heap of nuts spilled around an ancient-looking wooden chest, dark with age and bound with heavy iron.

 

"It's Samhain," he realised, and one of the men from the woods nodded at him, pleased.

 

"Aye," he said, "but tonight isn't just to recognise Samonios and the dark beginning. Tonight we draw on the power of the other world to accomplish our goal and change the world."

 

"What's your goal?" Merlin asked, but the man was already whirling away to spread dirt upon one of the fires.

 

All he knew about Samhain was from his short phase of thinking that knowing about paganism and the old religion would lead to clues about what he could do, but all the reading and even the meetings with so-called covens and magic appreciation societies had led to nothing but disappointment.

 

Nothing he'd read had referred to a goal of "changing the world." None of this was adding up well.

 

Arthur was still in the middle of his admirers, but the activity among the remaining couple of dozen robed figures was changing. The hemp woman and a few others were mixing something in a bowl, oats and milk that they stirred and, as he watched, poured into a cast iron skillet and baked over an open fire. Everyone was generally ignoring Merlin, but they watched Arthur with eager, covetous eyes. It made his skin crawl.

 

"Arthur," he said, sidling rudely between two of the girls. "I think we should go back. They'll probably be looking for us."

 

"Calm down, Merlin," Arthur said, and clapped him heavily on the back.

 

"Ladies, did you know Merlin is the worst tennis player I've ever seen? I mean, really. The _worst_."

 

"What's tennis?" one of them asked.

 

Arthur frowned. "What do you mean, it's—"

 

"Someone could lose their _job_ over this," Merlin protested. "If your father thinks they lost you."

 

"I'll talk to him, Merlin. Now, relax. Enjoy the scent of bonfires in the evening and – look, they're even feeding us!"

 

But they weren't, not really. The cake got cut into small pieces, heaped into a makeshift sack – one marked with an ember from the fire until it was black all over – and each person put on a blindfold and selected one.

 

Arthur drew the black bit, and after that the ritual was abandoned in a chorus of excited murmurs.

 

"To show you are worthy of the honour," explained hemp lady, whom Merlin was starting to think of as the Creepy Mastermind of this whole ridiculous business, "you must complete the task."

 

The task was to leap three times over the middle fire, which was significantly larger than the ring around it.

 

"I don't think—"

 

"Shut it, Merlin. I can do it." Arthur's face was set and determined, and he was already rolling his shoulders and hopping in anticipation.

 

"If you get hurt--"

 

"I said _shut up_, Emrys."

 

The whole crowd watched, silent and so obviously anticipatory that Merlin wondered if they were hoping Arthur would set himself on fire. Their eyes got larger and larger and Arthur circled the flames once, then walked back a few paces. He squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and went.

 

He cleared it, barely, landed hard on one foot on the other side, and the robes all shouted, joyful, and at the command of their hempy overseer threw in more kindling.

 

"You are almost worthy," she said, eyes shining.

 

"This is stupid," Merlin whispered to Arthur. "Let's just _go_."

 

"You think I can't do it, don't you?" said Arthur, somehow indignant. "Well, I can. It's not too different from when we have to hop the net in practise sometimes. Watch me."

 

"The net's not on _fire_, is it?" Merlin pointed out, but Arthur ignored him.

 

The second leap somehow went better, with some sort of complicated twist of his body in midair, like a pole vaulter, but Merlin didn't know what he was pushing off of.

 

Two of the girls actually shrieked in excitement.

 

"Once more and you will be ready," hemp woman confirmed. "The ritual will be almost complete, and the ceremony can start."

 

Higher licked the flames. Arthur wouldn't look at him.

 

When he went, Merlin watched his foot slip on a stick, so he pushed off without near enough force, and unless Merlin did something we was going face-first into the fire, and even if they pulled him out in time to save his life, it wouldn't be pretty.

 

He sucked in a breath, clenched his fingers in so tightly they almost cut into his palms, and pushed Arthur _up_. Arthur jerked awkwardly in the air, his legs flailed almost into the blaze, but he arced over the top and came down on his hands and knees on the other side.

 

There was a heavy moment of silence. Merlin worried they'd noticed, or seen his eyes flash in the darkness more than could be the reflected glare of the fire, but when he looked they were all staring at Arthur, and then at once they broke into another shout, almost frenzied in its shrillness. They burst into a flurry of movement, handing a large knife and one of the apples to hemp lady, who held both reverently.

 

"Now comes his name," she said, and began to slice. She ran a clean cut around the circumference, peeling, and threw the shred over her shoulder when she was finished.

 

Another investigated, face harsh in the firelight, and cried, "C!"

 

She breathed out a heavy sigh of relief, as if a C were a hard letter to make from an apple peel. She started again, cutting for longer this time, at least one full revolution of the fruit.

 

Merlin crossed to stand next to Arthur, who looking a little pale, jaw help tight.

 

"I didn't think I had that last one," Arthur said.

 

Merlin swallowed. "Well, uh… Good job? Can we go now?" But the lady was finished, and threw the second section back.

 

This time it was an equally difficult S, but apparently it was what they wanted, and a chant of "Sigan" or something of the like started up.

 

Two men came to either side of Arthur.

 

"Your time approaches," said the lady, face a frightening rictus of overdone rapture. "He will appreciate what we have selected for him."

 

"Arthur…" said Merlin.

 

"Okay," said Arthur. "Let's go."

 

Heavy hands landed on their shoulders.

 

"It's far too late for that," she said. "You've been chosen."

 

Several more men came forward with rope fashioned from vines, while two of the girls bore the wooden chest into the circle of light from the fire. All the druids drew forward as if compelled, all of them watching Arthur and the woman.

 

"Run!" said Arthur, but they all leaped on him, twining the rope around his wrists and securing them behind his back, forcing him onto his knees though he struggled violently, kicking one nearly into the fire before enough surrounded him to hold him still.

 

Merlin ran – or at least, he tried to, but one of them had grabbed his arm before he even took a full step, and soon they had him just as securely, though they hadn't bothered with the rope.

 

"Be still," one told him, quiet like they were exchanging secrets. "We're not going to hurt you. Or your friend. He's to receive the spirit. I would kill to be him."

 

The lady was opening the box, and lifting something free from it, a huge, heart-shaped stone with something blue inside of it, something that shone and swirled like smoke.

 

"I offer you the innocent vessel," she called, loud and resonant in the night. "He has completed the ritual and shown himself worthy, and on this night when the other world is close, we enact the instructions of the Old One to call you back to your rightful place in the world, and magic with you."

 

She held the blue stone out with both hands, walking slowly towards Arthur who was straining on the ground against too many hands.

 

Merlin could feel his heart pounding, and he knew, he _knew_, that even if Arthur wasn't technically hurt, something terrible was about to happen, and he was the only one who could stop it.

 

The fires, every one of them, leapt suddenly with the huge gust of wind that blew in, whirled through the clearing and jumped the flames from their earthen pits into the grass. Everything was suddenly hotter, the air dry and filled with smoke.

 

"Put them out!" she screamed, and Merlin's guards abandoned him without thinking, so he surged forward before they could come back, diving into the murky smoke in what he hoped was Arthur's direction.

 

"Arthur!" he yelled, and Arthur answered, almost immediately to his left. He could feel the heat on his other side, knew the flames were close, so he hurled himself towards Arthur's voice. He hit someone wearing rough wool that was obviously one of the druids, so he dug his feet into the ground and pushed as hard as he could. They went down with a shocked cry. The smoke was stinging his eyes, burning in his lungs.

 

He pushed at the air, trying to clear a circle around himself as best he could, and it was enough the he could breathe a little easier, and that he could see Arthur's shining hair and count the men still on him.

 

Only three. He pushed at them all too, a physical blow from behind, where they weren't expecting it, straight into their knees. It wasn't much, but it was enough to send them all toppling – they weren't actually very good at this – and he yelled, "Stand up, Arthur!"

 

Arthur did, staggering and awkward with his arms still behind him. One of the men on the ground tried to grab at his ankle, and Arthur stomped viciously on his hand.

 

"Come on come on come on," Merlin cried, letting the smoke eddy back in, pulling it directly into the faces of the men who'd been holding Arthur.

 

They ran, one direction, just _away_ as fast as they could, and Merlin spread the blaze behind them, not even sure whether he was just trying to delay pursuit or actually trying to kill them. Whoever they were. Whatever they were.

 

\----

 

Either Arthur had an extraordinary sense of direction or they were very lucky, because they soon came to the incline Merlin had fallen down, what really didn't seem like too long ago.

 

They hadn't even stopped to free Arthur's arms -- Merlin would have been to run approximately three feet like that.

 

"I can't get up that," Arthur said.

 

"Right," Merlin said, trying to figure out his possibilities. His eyes had adjusted as well as they would in the blackness, the stars poor compensation for the sliver of moon. "I'll just…"

 

The vines were wound tight, and pulling at the knot was like trying to pry a door open with a fingernail. Arthur's hand were cold, and Merlin realised they probably hadn't had proper circulation in nearly an hour.

 

"Knife," Arthur said. "Front right pocket."

 

"You carry a _knife_?" Merlin asked, scandalised. "This is a school trip!"

 

"It's just a Swiss army knife! It was my grandfather's. And besides, looks like we'll need it."

 

"Right," said Merlin. "Um… I'll just…" He paused.

 

"Well, it's not like _I_ can get it!" Arthur said.

 

"Right," Merlin said again, and darted his hand around Arthur's body, shoved it into his pocket. He could feel Arthur's thigh, hard and hot through the cloth, against his fingers when he wrapped them around the metal.

 

"Be _careful_," Arthur said as Merlin fumbled it open.

 

"I know, I know…" And he was, though the blade was dull and the fibres tough. He settled on sawing as the most effective motion, and soon had enough sliced through that he could yank apart the rest.

 

"Oh, ow, ow," Arthur complained when his hands sprang free, shaking them and grimacing.

 

"Sorry," Merlin apologised. Arthur stopped.

 

"For what?"

 

"For not, uh… Doing that sooner, I guess?"

 

"I think we were a little busy. Besides, we… We should have left immediately. No normal girl is that impressed by a _cartwheel_."

 

It was as close to admitting someone else was right as he'd ever heard Arthur Pendragon get.

 

"And they are probably still looking," Arthur continued, "so let's go."

 

He scrambled up the incline easily, and Merlin followed his path. When Arthur reached the top, he turned around and pulled Merlin over the edge.

 

After a few more minutes they heard someone yelling their names, and he looked up to the sky finally brightening.

 

\----

 

Merlin slept the entire drive back. A crowd of girls with round, concerned eyes had herded Arthur onto the other bus, so Merlin didn't know if he too had slept so deeply he didn't even have any dreams.

 

Everyone collectively disembarked and headed to their rooms for coursework. Even Gwen had rubbed at a persistent streak of ash oh his face and said she had a lot of French vocabulary to learn, if he was sure he was okay.

 

He wasn't, not exactly, but that wasn't Gwen's problem. Besides, he had a plan.

 

So he wound the long way between the squat brick halls, letting himself in the back door of the one he knew was Arthur's. Once he was in, though, he didn't know what room was his.

 

Fortunately, their enthusiastic R.A. had labelled every door, and he found the one tagged Arthur P on the third floor. There wasn't any noise coming from within like some of the others rooms, so he lingered for a moment trying to decide if he should try to go elsewhere.

 

One of the bus girls opened the door before he could choose, flipping her hair over her shoulder and giving him a huff of disdain before she stalked off down the hall. Merlin poked his head through the open door.

 

Arthur was sitting at the desk, which for some reason Merlin had expected would be a very different desk from his own, but was pretty much the same. He had their History text but he was staring at it with the empty stare of one who definitely wasn't reading.

 

He looked up when Merlin's feet scuffed on the floor, eyes still fogged and bloodshot from smoke. He wasn't as pale, though, as he had been when he'd staggered out of the shadows of the trees in the dawn, blanched under the soot and covered in dirt.

 

"You still look awful," Merlin observed.

 

"Ms. Hawne wanted to take me to the hospital. Smoke inhalation or something. I convinced her we weren't actually near the fire, so it would be best if you said the same."

 

"That's what you said?" Merlin hadn't even been asked.

 

"That we got lost during the game and some kids set a fire that got out of control, yes."

 

"She didn't say anything about going to the police?"

 

"I told her we didn't see anyone."

 

"Oh… Well, I think we should."

 

"Should what?"

 

"Tell the police. They – I don't know what they were going to do, but what if they try again?"

 

"I don't think they're going to track down my school and kidnap me or something," Arthur said, leaning back in his desk chair. It, for one, was much better than the stiff wooden one at Merlin's, leather with armrests and a high back. Arthur's room was also in better shape than Merlin's, everything a little neater, pencils in their holder on his desk and clothes hanging in the closet. But his walls were bare and everything was so _beige_. The only things that stood out were his red pillow cases. He didn't seem to have a roommate, but Merlin had heard that all the rooms in this hall were singles. Of course.

 

"Maybe not," Merlin said, though secretly he thought it possible. "But what if they decide they don't need you after all, and pick someone else? What if they're going to try something really _terrible_ with that blue thing?"

 

"I'm pretty sure Morgana had a game as a child with that thing as a piece in it," Arthur said with a small chuckle. "But… Alright. Just in case."

 

"Okay," Merlin said, smiling and relieved. He pushed off the wall he'd been leaning on, unsure whether to actually go into the room.

 

Arthur was standing up, too, grabbing a jacket from his closet and wallet from the dresser.

 

"Now?" Merlin asked, thinking about the mountain of unopened books on his desk and his freshly laundered sheets.

 

"No, Merlin, tomorrow, after they've had some time to regroup and cover their tracks. _Now_. I'll go get my father's car and meet you by your room."

 

Uther Pendragon owned the shiniest BMW sedan Merlin had ever seen. He thought it had more space inside than his bedroom. At home.

 

"Can you actually drive?" Merlin asked as Arthur sped down the long drive.

 

"Of course I can, Merlin. What do you think I'm doing right now?"

 

"No, I mean – legally?"

 

Arthur shrugged.

 

The station wasn't a long distance from school, which was fortunate since neither of them seemed to have anything to say. It was small-town unofficial, particularly on a Sunday, so they were able to walk right into a room with several cluttered desks and a row of closed doors on the far side.

 

"Can I help you?" asked the only visible man, thick dark hair and serious, noble eyes, sitting at one of the desks.

 

"Um…" said Merlin, trying to find a way to explain that balanced _important_ and _definitely not crazy_. But he was drawing a blank.

 

"We need to speak to an officer," Arthur said, giving him a look from the corner of his eyes.

 

"I'm Constable Du Lac," said the man, standing to greet them. "What can I help you with?"

 

Their explanation came gradually – they probably should have discussed it in the car – but Du Lac didn't even give them the sort of dubious look Merlin had been dreading. He tried to make it sound like he was just worried about pagans tying up tourists and forcing them to jump through fires, because even Merlin wasn't sure what he thought about the implications of their words. Hopefully Arthur wouldn't even know enough to have remembered them as important.

 

Halfway through their story, one of the doors opened: the one marked _D.C.O. Merrist_, and an older man looked out at them.

 

"Just taking a statement, sir," Du Lac said. "Nothing major, just some local crazies."

 

"Not… Local, exactly," said Merlin. "We were on a trip. To Cornwall."

 

"Cornwall? That's out of our jurisdiction, why didn't you tell the police there?"

 

Arthur shifted. "Our teacher said we didn't really know enough to be useful. But we didn't… We didn't tell her everything. I didn't want to get her in trouble with my father."

 

"Your father?"

 

"He'd fire her," Merlin said, matter-of-fact, and Arthur glared at him.

 

"You don't know that. But I'm telling you now, so what does it matter?"

 

When Merlin looked back over, after he and Arthur described what they could recall of the hemp lady and her minions, the man from the office door was gone.

 

Merlin had gone to get a drink from the water fountain when he heard someone yelling. He crept back down the hallway, hesitant, because he knew that voice.

 

"… Interviewing my son without a _lawyer present_, that's not even _legal_!"

 

"Father, I chose to come here, they didn't—"

 

"_Silence_, Arthur. It's a damn good thing Merrist called me. I could have you charged for stealing my car, as well, which Mister... Du _Lac_ can drive back, since I had to use Morgana's to come down here."

 

Merlin peeked around the corner, to see all of them standing: Uther, the centre of attention as usual, commanding, Arthur facing him, red-faced and scowling, Constable Du Lac a little flabbergasted and the older man – Merrist – glaring.

 

"Now, Arthur," said Uther, putting a controlling hand on Arthur's shoulder.

 

"But, Father, something _happened_, I was _there_!"

 

"Did they hurt you?" Uther asked, looking actually concerned, an expression Merlin had never expected to see on his face. Arthur shook his head.

 

"Then they can take care of it without you. It's their job, Arthur. Yours is your schoolwork. No need for you to get involved with these crackpots."

 

He steered Arthur right out of the station, and Merrist gave Du Lac one last good glare before he stalked back into his office and closed the door.

 

"Sorry," Merlin said.

 

Du Lac smiled. "Definitely not your fault, Merlin. Now, how about I give you a lift back. I'm assuming you don't want to be in that car?"

 

"Definitely not," Merlin agreed. "But… I don't want to be any more trouble."

 

"It's fine, Merlin. Now come on, I felt like you weren't done explaining everything, anyway."

 

On the trip back, Merlin told Du Lac – Lance – a little more than he'd been planning. He was friendly and understanding, and he actually seemed to be _listening_, even after Merlin accidentally let slip a hint that he thought they were trying to use magic.

 

All he said was, "Really?" and when Merlin nodded, nervous, all he did was look thoughtful. Also, his cheekbones were a little devastating.

 

When he dropped Merlin off by his dorm, he promised he'd look into it as best he could. Merlin went inside hopeful, at least until he remembered all the work he had to do.

 

\----

 

Arthur wasn't in class the next day. A little concerned, Merlin skipped dinner and sneaked into his hall again.

 

He was half expecting no one to answer the knock, no one to be in, but Arthur was there, schoolbook open against the red pillows. When he looked up, he didn't look happy.

 

"You weren't in class," Merlin said.

 

"Father made me go to the hospital. Said I'd obviously inhaled more smoke than I thought if I was talking nonsense about people trying to use magic."

 

"You told him?" Merlin asked.

 

"Unfortunately. But he's… I think he's right, Merlin. We should drop it."

 

"But— The policeman believed us. He believed me about everything."

 

"You told him _everything_?"

 

"Well, no. But more than you did. And he's going to investigate it."

 

"Look, Emrys," Arthur said, sitting up and closing his book, unexpectedly fierce. "All we saw was a bunch of idiots in robes lighting fires. They lost control of it and could have hurt someone, but the police will find them. It's not like they were actually going to be able to _do_ anything."

 

"But they—"

 

"But nothing, My father's right; we don't need to get involved."

 

"No, Arthur. You're wrong. I don't really know _what_ they were doing, but it was bad. They're bad."

 

"They're just a lot of deluded idiots, Emrys. I'm not involved any longer. So leave me alone."

 

"Fine," Merlin hissed, surprised at how betrayed he felt. He could only think of one thing to vocalise it: "Coward."

 

He walked out and didn't look back.

 

\----

 

He was perfectly set to leave Arthur alone, let him be the hypocritical coward he obviously was and forget he'd ever thought Arthur capable of anything more. He was surly at lunch with Gwen and Morgana the next day, but fine by dinner, turning his back when the same blond from before dumped one of Arthur's friends spectacularly and upended a whole plate of spaghetti down his shirt when he revealed he'd been screwing some other girl all along. Merlin wondered if Arthur had been doing the blond, too. He was probably the type.

 

He resolved to get into town somehow that weekend, walk if he had to, and go to the station. Maybe he could help, but even if he couldn't, he didn't feel right about that group, whatever they were.

 

The next day, he ran home to switch books between lunch and French and found a note on his door.

 

_See you at 7:00, AP._

 

Seven was the walk back from dinner, so Merlin deliberately went the long way, around the back of the halls. Arthur must have been expecting it, though, because he was sprawled across a bench in the back courtyard, drinking juice from a glass he must have filched from the dining hall.

 

"What is it?" Merlin asked, because he wanted to be the first to say something. He'd been planning on staring with something else, but his plan hadn't been structured around Arthur looking at him with his huge blue eyes, and Merlin was filled with a sudden shot of hope.

 

"I'm… Well. Did you -- Did you do the reading for Lancaster yet?"

 

Merlin felt his jaw drop.

 

"I haven't, Arthur," he said, and turned around to go around to the front door.

 

\----

 

Three days later, a teenage boy went missing. Allen Jones, 16, attractive and intelligent and strong, just like Arthur. Merlin had seen the photos in the papers and on the news. His stomach welled up cold, and he felt, for a moment, a powerful desire to tell Arthur, to do something, but then he remembered. Arthur was through with it. He was through with Arthur.

 

That night the dreams started.

 

After the third time he woke up sweaty and terrified, afterimages of Allen Jones tied up on his knees with no one to help him still in his head, he knew he couldn't ignore it.

 

He borrowed his roommate's bicycle and rode into town during lunch the next day, burst through the same doors and passed all the same desks, several now occupied by people who didn't look up when he passed.

 

Lance was staring at the notes he'd made while interviewing Merlin and Arthur, hands clasped over his brow.

 

"It's them," Merlin said, still out of breath. "They did it, I know they did."

 

Lance looked up. "Merlin!" he said, and he didn't really seem happy about it. "I was just—"

 

"I know. I mean, I know what those are. But listen, that boy – Allen Jones – they took him." Several of the other officers were watching now.

 

"Merlin," Lance said again. "Let's… Let's go talk. Out front."

 

"Why not in there?" Merlin asked as they passed the empty rooms.

 

"Those are all wired, of course," said Lance with a small grin and an arched eyebrow.

 

"Oh."

 

"Listen, Merlin," Lance began as soon as he closed the door behind him. "I made those calls like I said, and the park doesn't have record of any employees matching the descriptions you gave me."

 

"But… She was there! She gave our whole _class_ a lecture! On… Hemp or something!"

 

"I know, but there's nothing else I can do, Merlin. It's not my jurisdiction, and even if it were, the chief said we're not to mention it again. I don't know who told him to back off, but they were… Convincing. If I keep asking questions, I'll be fired. And then I definitely won't be able to help."

 

"But… Allen Jones—"

 

"They're focusing on a divorced father angle, bad custody arrangement. It seems to add up. I'm sorry, Merlin. I really am."

 

"But… They were – They tried..,"

 

"I _know_. But we just have to hope the Cornish division can figure it out. You probably feel like – Even I feel like I betrayed you." Merlin didn't feel like that, not exactly, just helpless and alone, and stupid for expecting anything else.

 

"Right," he said. "Well… Thanks for trying. Bye."

 

He auto-piloted the rest of his lessons, spent the break trying to do research on his computer, but kept running up against content filters whenever he thought he was actually getting to something substantive.

 

He skipped dinner, too, couldn't imagine eating or sitting and watching all his classmates act out their pantomime of real life, cloaked in money and privilege.

 

He'd never been to Gwen's room before, mostly because boys weren't to go to the girls' rooms, and vice versa, but he knew that most people ignored this rule. He still wasn't aiming to get caught, but fortunately everyone was at dinner.

 

He heard them laughing from down the hall, loud and carefree and happy. He only realised when they opened the door how very, very creepy this all would look.

 

"Merlin!" Gwen said, surprised but not nearly as accusatory as she could have been.

 

"Ah... Good evening," he stammered, blushing.

 

"How did you even get in here?" Morgana asked, crossing to toss her coat onto the bed. She didn't even seem perturbed. She probably never did.

 

"Oh, picked the lock," he lied, fake-casual.

 

"Unexpected." She favoured him with an arched eyebrow and a secretive smile, apparently approving.

 

"Well, man of many talents, I guess?" That had sounded much more debonair in his head.

 

"What is it?" Gwen asked.

 

"I need your help with the content filter. For the internet."

 

"Your porn getting blocked, Merlin?" Morgana laughed.

 

"No, it's -- it's important," he said, not even embarrassed at the insinuation. There were some perks to purpose.

 

Morgana looked at him for a long moment, and he wondered what in him she was judging.

 

"I could get it around it, probably," she said. "But it's still monitored. So if you have a legitimate reason, then you could probably just go to a teacher. But if you don't, I still can't help, sorry. You'll still get caught."

 

He hadn't thought about that.

 

"Merlin," Gwen said. "You look -- tired. I mean, you look okay, but tired."

 

"You do," Morgana agreed bluntly. "What's wrong?"

 

"Just, ah... Not getting a lot of sleep," he said.

 

"You haven't been right since we got back from that history trip," Gwen said.

 

"It was all that time with Arthur, wasn't it? I could see it making one sick..." Morgana said, trailing off as if in thought.

 

Sort of. Unfortunately. But. "No, it's..."

 

He had two options: he could tell Gwen and Morgana, leaving anything too revealing about himself out but still exposing himself to the possibility they would simply think him crazy and turn him over to Uther for some sort of mental reprogramming or whatever Uther subjected students who questioned his beliefs to, or he could brush the whole thing off, continue on his own.

 

Only, he didn't have a car, couldn't really get anywhere, couldn't even seem to _start_ figuring out what to do on his own, and he knew that somewhere Allen Jones, if he was even alive, was alone and probably scared and it just wasn't about Merlin anymore.

 

"I wasn't honest with you," he admitted. "Before, about what happened on the trip..."

 

And they were shocked, which he'd expected. They asked why he hadn't told them before, which he'd expected. They were impressed that he'd somehow managed to wrest his way from several captors at once, which he felt a little guilty about but mostly worried they'd expect him to somehow demonstrate that skill in the future. He told them he'd been worried they'd think he was crazy, which was true. Then he told them about Allen Jones, and they stopped looking so accepting.

 

"How do you know?" Morgana asked. She and Gwen exchanged a brief look; there was something going on that he was missing.

 

"Well... They were talking about a suitable body, you know? And Arthur, I mean, he's an absolute arse, but, well. You know."

 

Morgana raised her eyebrows. Gwen actually turned a little pink.

 

"Anyway," he rushed. "Allen Jones is pretty similar. Superficially. And this sounds ridiculous, but I just... Know. And we went to the police and one of them seemed to believe us, but the chief called Uther and he came rushing in and--"

 

"We?" asked Morgana.

 

"Me and Arthur. So Uther took him--"

 

"Arthur went to the police station? To say _this_?"

 

"Not... exactly. But close. Close enough that Uther stormed in and told him he's not to be involved anymore. One of the officers believed us, but he can't do anything, either. And if I can find out what they were trying to do, then maybe I can get better evidence and convince him to do something, or give it to someone who can, and--"

 

"We'll have to go into town," Morgana decided. "You don't have lessons late on Friday, right? So tomorrow afternoon."

 

He could feel how large his smile was, he must've looked a right idiot, but he didn't care. Even though he was actually no closer to figuring anything out, the relief of having help, of having someone believe in him that much, was so great it felt like progress anyway.

 

"And get some sleep tonight," Morgana said.

 

He was so distracted by being happy that on the way out he forgot to look out for people and nearly got caught.

 

POST BREAK HERE

 

\----

 

They were nearly ready to go when Arthur appeared, German books in one hand and PE bag in the other. He looked past them at first, then stopped short.

 

"Where are you going?"

 

Merlin was silent. Apparently he wasn't over the slight feelings of betrayal.

 

"We're going into town, Arthur," Morgana replied.

 

"Why?"

 

"None of your business. Don't you have tennis practise?"

 

Arthur ignore her, looked at Merlin instead. Merlin looked away, wishing the car park weren't right in the middle of grounds, and watched Arthur's hand tighten on the strap of his bag. "Is it about…"

 

"What do you care?" Merlin asked. "You didn't want to be involved, so you're not."

 

"Allen Jones," Arthur said.

 

"Yes." A bit of a challenge.

 

Arthur scuffed a foot on the ground, carving a long variegated streak through the gravel. "I do have tennis practise. We'll go at three. I was supposed to have tea with father but I think he'll be glad we're spending time together." He looked sideways at Morgana.

 

"Arthur, if you need a lift into town, you'll have to ask one of your—" Morgana began. Merlin really wanted to know what she was about to say about Arthur's legion of admirers and copycat berks, but Arthur interrupted.

 

"I think you're right, Merlin. They didn't stop. So I'll see you at three."

 

"Tennis," said Morgana. Arthur pulled a grimace and ran off. Merlin had heard tell of the tennis coach's punishment for being late to practise, but he hadn't thought the rules for the masses -- such as they were, here -- would apply to Arthur. Apparently he'd been wrong.

 

"He seemed genuine," Gwen said, looking across the car at Merlin. Morgana was still watching the path he'd walked down, frowning like she expected him to run back and declare it all a misunderstanding, say he needed a ride to meet some girl he'd picked up at the cinema or something. Merlin half expected it himself, despite the actual concern Arthur was implying.

 

"He did..." Morgana agreed.

 

"I guess we wait, then," Merlin said.

 

\-----

 

The public library was smaller than the school's and the building older, quaint where the school had gargoyles on the four corners and bas relief trim spanning each side. The second floor had a bank of computers that, judging by the speed they were loading pages, still used dial-up.

 

"What are you even looking for?" Arthur asked, like Gwen hadn't already explained what she thought was the best place the start.

 

"Pagan ceremonies, like she _said_," Morgana hissed. Arthur slouched back in his chair, restless and testy.

 

"I thought you were going to _do something_," he said.

 

"What do you propose we do?" Morgana asked. "Really, I'd like to know."

 

"Why are you even here?"

 

"Merlin _asked_ for our help. You just invited yourself."

 

"Actually, I was _there_, and--"

 

"Shut it," Gwen interrupted, not looking up from the screen, where it seemed some information had finally loaded.

 

Arthur stood and stalked down the aisle.

 

"Where are you going?" Merlin asked.

 

"This is a library, so I'm going to ask the librarian for help," he said, and continued walking.

 

"No no no," Merlin said, all at once, and rushed after him.

 

"Why not?" Arthur asked as they descended the stairs.

 

"Because! What if they--"

 

"Merlin, this is a library. People come here to read about things. I'm sure they're used to it. Now." He stopped in the lobby, arms akimbo as he surveyed the room. "Reference. I'm sure they can help."

 

They could, it turned out. An ancient man whose name tag read Geoffrey led them to a back corner, where Merlin could smell the dusty odour of old books.

 

"Anything in particular?" he asked.

 

"Well," said Merlin. "We went on a trip -- for school -- and, they mentioned something. A thing, or a name. Um... Sigan?"

 

The librarian's old eyes widened. "Sigan? Where did you hear that?"

 

"Just something they mentioned on our trip," said Arthur. "Sounded... Interesting. Thought we might do a project on it."

 

"Cornelius Sigan is not an _it_, young man," Geoffrey admonished. He ducked behind one shelf, emerged carrying several weighty volumes. "Cornelius Sigan was one of the most powerful sorcerers who ever lived -- if you believe the legends. Some people don't, these days, like it wasn't just three hundred years ago he disappeared from the Earth."

 

"...Oh," said Merlin. He looked over and caught Arthur looking back at him.

 

"So he had some sort of... Blue, uh..." How did one say "giant tacky heart-shaped diamond" without sounding crazy? "Jewel?"

 

"I'm not sure," the librarian said, "but you'll find all the information that's survived about him in these volumes, even the speculation and rumours."

 

\---

 

"Merlin," Arthur said half an hour later, after Gwen and Morgana had come looking for them and settled down with their own dusty tomes. Merlin didn't really notice at first, absorbed instead in a recounting of the two dozen ways Sigan had demonstrated to Parliament that he could make a traitor spill their secrets. It was sickening, but horrendously compelling, and he swallowed the lump of dread in his throat at the idea that this was what _he_ could do, if he wanted.

 

"Merlin," Arthur said again, and poked him viciously in the side. "Wake up, I found it."

 

And he had. They all leaned in, heads together over the book and focusing where Arthur was marking a line with his finger.

 

"And his followers said Sigan would return, that he'd separated his soul from his body, which would decompose and rot away, so that when the time was right, a new body would be found and Sigan would walk the earth again, at a time when he wouldn't be persecuted for his deeds and his knowledge. No one has ever photographed the heart of Sigan, but legend tells of a blue diamond, possibly in the shape or a heart or perhaps a triangle," Gwen read. "That's the end of the page."

 

"That's what you saw?" Morgana asked.

 

Merlin nodded, and risked a look over at Arthur who was doing the same, an unhappy cant to his mouth.

 

"Keep reading," Arthur said. "The next page."

 

Gwen turned it over. "That's all there is."

 

"But what about the people who have the heart? What happened to it? What are they trying to do?"

 

"It's not _here_," she said. "Check the other books?"

 

They did, but there wasn't anything more than the first. All Merlin learnt was more details about the seemingly endless reaches of Sigan's power, and the way his imagination stretched to invent new uses for it.

 

The old librarian didn't have any more books, or know of any others that might help.

 

When they emerged into the afternoon sun, Arthur's phone made so much noise Merlin thought some sort of alarm was going off, or perhaps that it was just going to explode. Apparently it was just that he'd received several hours' worth of "where are you?" text messages.

 

Morgana gave him a rather disparaging look. "Do you need to return to your populace?"

 

"No," Arthur said, defiant and with a raised chin, like a petulant child. He wondered if this was a frequent point of contention between them. "Let's get some food."

 

There weren't many restaurant in town, especially since Arthur and Morgana vetoed each others' first choices immediately, but they managed to find somewhere to share a sufficiently awkward meal, all too-long silences and reaching for the salt at the same time.

 

He spent the ride back focusing on his thoughts about what they'd read, how he could possibly learn more. He'd expected them all to disperse when they returned to school. Instead, he looked up suddenly from wondering how he could somehow find Allen Jones to realise they were all still together, and that they were sitting in a square on the sunny lawn behind a cluster of dormitories, silent until Morgana interrupted.

 

"I don't supposed anyone has some sort of secret Druid aunt?" she asked. Merlin recognised the semi-jocular hopelessness of her tone, because it was the same thing he felt when he pondered breaking into Allen Jones' home and trying to use one of his old shirts or something to follow a scent trail. Gwen looked back at her, and they exchanged a long look that he couldn't decipher.

 

Arthur was selecting individual blades of grass, ripping them from their roots, and then splitting them down the middle between two fingernails before discarding the limp shreds into a pile on his left.

 

"You know all my relatives," was all he said.

 

Merlin didn't seem to have any relatives. It seemed he could be of no help at all.

 

When Gwen said she wanted a shower before dinner and Morgana followed her away, Arthur looked up as Merlin gave them a weak smile goodbye.

 

"I thought you'd gone to sleep on us," he said.

 

Merlin shook his head, or as much as he could with his chin propped on one knee. "Can't sleep much these days."

 

Arthur made a face. "I know the feeling."

 

"Are you having nightmares?" Merlin asked, jolted up by the sudden possibility.

 

But Arthur said, "No... Just... Thinking about it too much, I suppose." His fingers doubled their efforts, attacking the grass savagely.

 

"Really?" Merlin asked, his tone a little more shocked than he'd intended.

 

Arthur looked at him. "Really, Merlin," he said, sarcastic. "I guess I'm not the sort of person who could let some kid go through all that and just ignore it."

 

Merlin tilted his head, met Arthur's unhappy gaze. "Good," he decided. Arthur smiled in response. Just a bit, a small quirk of his lips that on a normal person wouldn't be considered a smile at all, but it was so obviously different from the mocking smirks Arthur normally employed that Merlin counted it.

 

"So do you..." he asked. "Do you actually believe they'll do it? That they can resurrect that Cornelius guy?" His instincts told him to look away, try to play it off as a casual enquiry, but it wasn't, and he needed to see how Arthur reacted to it.

 

"I don't know. But I believe they're trying, and I don't know what they'd be capable of when it doesn't work."

 

Not even _if_ it doesn't work. He knew it was a lot to expect, and he was still surprised whenever his thoughts came back around to the realisation that Arthur was on board again, but he couldn't deny that he'd been hoping what they'd seen would be proof for Arthur. Or what they'd read. Or something.

 

\----

 

Three in the morning was a little early for the dreams to start when he'd stayed up past one trying to read all the History he'd ignored all week and texting Will, but he found himself jerked awake all the same.

 

It wasn't the dreams, though. Or maybe it was, because his brain was telling him that Arthur Pendragon was standing in his doorway, arms full of a rumpled bundle of sheets and a thick duvet, hair riotous.

 

"You," he said, looking at Merlin's roommate Ben, half-sitting in his bed, bleary. "Up."

 

"What?" Ben said. _Exactly_, Merlin thought.

 

"We're switching," Arthur said. "Heatherton Hall, 302. Don't touch anything, I'll get it tomorrow."

 

Ben rolled out of the bed, pulling his sheets off from one corner as he went.

 

"Arthur!" Merlin protested. "You can't just order people to do whatever you want all time!" He and Ben weren't really friends, but he was an alright bloke and he let Merlin borrow his bike when he needed it. He didn't deserve to get pushed around in the middle of the night by Arthur bloody Pendragon, apparently still as epic a prat as ever.

 

"Actually--" Arthur began.

 

"--It's alright," Ben said. "You actually want to switch? For the whole year?"

 

"Don't push it," Arthur said. "End of term."

 

And that was all the negotiating Ben did.

 

Merlin stewed as Ben gathered his own bedding and disappeared, scowled as Arthur closed the door behind him with an admonishment that they should have locked it in the first place, and finally, as Arthur tried in a manner that would normally have been comical to fight his fitted sheet into submission, exclaimed, "What the bloody hell, Arthur?"

 

Arthur looked up, and the corner he'd just spent a whole two minutes securing slipped off with a vengeful twang again.

 

"Everyone in school wants in that hall, Merlin," he said. "I don't know what you're in such a tizzy about." The other corner he'd wrapped around the mattress slipped up as well, so the whole thing was just a twined mess in the middle of the bed again.

 

"Good lord," Merlin observed, and slipped out of his own comfortingly warm bed. "Have you ever made your own bed?" he asked as he directed Arthur to hold one end down as he tucked the other under. Arthur watched his hands like Merlin was speaking sign language.

 

"No," he said.

 

"Of course not," Merlin sighed. "But... Why are you here, Arthur?"

 

Arthur scowled, was silent for a moment, and then put his hands on his hips like he was about to make an important proclamation instead of explaining why on earth he'd felt the need to wake Merlin up in the middle of the night and eject Ben from his room.

 

You see..." he began, and then trailed off again. "It's just... They don't really get it."

 

"What?"

 

"No one else. They don't understand why I'm not sleeping and why I can't focus on my work and it's _annoying_. It doesn't feel right. Sometimes I look at them and I think, 'You don't know _anything_.'"

 

Having felt basically the same way all week, Merlin couldn't argue with that. He didn't know quite how to respond to it coming out of someone else's mouth, though. Least of all Arthur, so he just nodded and looked down at his his hands, smoothing the cinched corner of the fitted sheet fruitlessly.

 

\---

 

Most Saturdays, Merlin slipped solo into the woods that bordered the school on three sides, a horseshoe with the road connecting the two ends. He walked until he got to the point where he knew if he looked back, he'd be unable to see even a hint of the school, and then he kept going.

 

When his mother first gave him him a talk about experimenting, he'd thought for one heart-pounding instant that she'd somehow known what he did in the basement with the powers she'd urged him to use sparingly and absolutely never reveal.

 

It was actually worse.

 

Debilitating sex-talks aside, he'd never stopped manipulating small objects or seeing how many knots he could tie in his shoelaces. He'd also never found something he couldn't do. Not that he'd moved much beyond the shoelaces, but it was still amazing to open up his hands and send the leaves into a cloud over the forest floor.

 

But this was not to be one of those Saturdays.

 

He opened his eyes to find the room's east-facing windows filled with sunlight, casting an oblong shadow onto the hardwood flooring. That made this the first morning he'd slept soundly past dawn all week.

 

It proved a good thing he was so rested, because Arthur had made a _plan_ for their day, and taking a break was not a part of it.

 

Perhaps Arthur was completely unaccustomed to being alone, or perhaps he was feeling particularly needy. Either way, he made it quite clear that Merlin's presence was required for all the day's activities.

 

Merlin made of point of demonstrating how very extraneous he found his presence by being as unaccommodating as possible when they went to ferry the rest of Arthur's stuff over. I mostly consisted of clothes that Merlin either wore on his head or dropped (on accident, mostly, but Arthur stopped believing him after the first several times) on the ground.

 

Two people he recognised as lesser cronies -- they could probably be described more accurately as hangers-on -- came to gawk after they got into a particularly loud squabbling match over whether he'd landed Arthur's pillow in the mud on purpose. It wasn't the most opportune of moments for Merlin's reputation; he a scarf looped around his head, tied ends dangling in his eyes, and he was wearing two of Arthur's sweaters with Arthur's coat on top. It was still too big for him.

 

Arthur's grin faded at their flabbergasted expressions, melding into something like his well-practised _leave my presence, peons_ sneer. Only worse. Merlin realised, watching the hangers-on quail at it, that for all that he'd observed it, he couldn't remember actually having been on the receiving end since the first several weeks of term.

 

Arthur's game line was making a lot more sense.

 

They organised the newly-cluttered room -- unsurprisingly, Arthur had a vast array of clothing, far more than Ben or Merlin -- until Arthur had tennis. Then of course Arthur had somehow misplaced all his PE clothes. His expression when Merlin pointed disdainfully to the left side of the middle drawer almost made the whole day of lugging things worth it.

 

At least, that was what he told Arthur. He only admitted to himself how much fun he'd actually had.

 

\----

 

He'd never actually been to the tennis courts before, not the clean, well-lit ones with a variety of unmarred surfaces and clean rows of seats for spectators. The front rows were filled with the usual suspects, Arthur's friends and the girls in the group they revolved around. Merlin wasn't actually clear on all their names, but he knew enough to stay the hell away.

 

Arthur was down on the court already, too attractive in white with the school's crest on the breast of his shirt. He was serving to an empty court, stretching tall to toss the ball up and then swooping to smash it across the net, over and over and over. The girls clapped after each ball skidded in the clay; Arthur ignored them.

 

Merlin considered leaving now and covering his ass later by complimenting Arthur's totally fearsome service skills, but he turned around to go back up the steps and noticed Morgana sitting in the stands. Well, he had to do a double take before he recognised her, but it was definitely her. As he walked over, she turned to look and him and he saw Gwen on her other side. They were sitting on the same blanket over the cold metal seats, which he rather envied.

 

"Didn't expect to see you here," he said, sliding in close to block some of the chilly October wind. They were at the point in the year where the sun was more like a cruel reminder of warmer times than an actual source of heat.

 

"Oh," Gwen replied, leaning across Morgana to give him a knowing grin, "she comes to all Arthur's matches. You're not supposed to know, though. Neither is he. Rather like how we're not supposed to notice him lurking in the back for our matches."

 

"I could say the same to you," Morgana pointed out.

 

Merlin shrugged, aiming for casual. "I said I would."

 

"To Arthur?"

 

"Who else?"

 

Morgana, of course, recognised his attempt at levity for what it was and still didn't oblige him by moving on. "What does he have on you?"

 

Merlin looked at the court. Arthur and his opponent were warming up, but didn't actually look like they were about to start. "It's not... Okay, there's no way to make this not sound crazy, so: Arthur burst into my room on Friday night and made Ben switch with him because he said he feels weird in his old room or something."

 

He looked down, because he absolutely knew he wasn't keeping a poker face about all this, but he could still see from the corner of his eye Gwen peeking back around Morgana's shoulder, eyes wide. Morgana, when he hazarded a look, was just staring at him. Then she threw back her head and laughed.

 

"I don't think there's another person in the world who could be so insane and spoilt and ridiculous all at once," she said, grinning like a maniac.

 

"That would be more convincing if you weren't working on perfect attendance at all his matches," Gwen said.

 

The match started, and Merlin grinned as he huddled in, glad he'd come.

 

Arthur was rather terrifying in game mode, intense and quiet and in perfect form. He didn't celebrate obnoxiously when he got a point or showily berate himself for errors like his opponent. It took Merlin a few games -- and an explanation from Gwen of the scoring system -- to realise it, but Arthur was -- as far as he could tell -- in complete control of the match. In the second set he noticed that Arthur was drawing his opponent, who was not really living up to his reputation, closer and closer to the net and then once the other player had committed to a side, he'd send the ball straight and fast down the other line, where it bounced just inside the boundary and was gone.

 

During the second set, the other player experienced a brief rally in which he figured out the trap and stopped tripping right into it, but it didn't take long before Arthur caught on and started something else. Merlin could feel Morgana tense beside him. The girls in the front didn't exactly seem able to understand the process.

 

\----

 

Arthur came back to the room still in his tennis whites after the sun had started to fall from the sky. He seemed unable to enter unobtrusively like Ben had been, for some reason Merlin found himself not really minding when the door banged open and he started so hard he lost his place in _Macbeth_.

"Have you been in here working all _day_?" Arthur demanded, face popping out of the collar of his shirt grimacing mouth-first as he stripped it off.

"Have you been celebrating for _hours_?" Merlin countered.

"I've been -- what would I be celebrating?" Socks went into the bin, and Merlin looked away when the shorts when down, but not quick enough to avoid his new knowledge of boxers, not briefs.

"You won, didn't you?"

"I _always_ win. If I celebrated every time, I'd always be bored."

Merlin closed his book, because he was pretty sure Macbeth's struggles weren't going to penetrate the solid layer of _did that really just happen_. Even if it was true. Even then.

Arthur ignored his flabbergasted expression. "You went, then?"

"I said I would," Merlin replied.

"I didn't see you," Arthur said.

"I was with Morgana and Gwen, who informed me you have a mutual understanding of hiding at each other's sporting events."

Arthur actually harrumphed at that, and finally pulled a t-shirt out of a drawer and put it on.

"Nice trick, by the way, with the pulling them into the middle and then hitting it down the side."

"You noticed that?"

"Long before he did, apparently."

Arthur smiled. "He really didn't live up to his reputation, did he?"

"Not one bit," Merlin agreed, and grinned right back across the small room. Arthur wasn't smiling like Merlin had seen him smile before, this one made him look younger, made him look actually happy, made the corners of his eyes wrinkle. Merlin didn't think he'd have been able to resist it even if he hasn't been feeling so easy and content.

\----

It wasn't surprising to heave awake while the room was still dark and the hall silent, but it was surprising to hear the sheets rustling as Arthur sat up.

"Sorry, sorry," Merlin apologised. "Didn't mean to wake you."

Arthur thumped back down. "You didn't wake me."

"You haven't slept at all?" Merlin asked, rolling onto his side so he could see Arthur's bed as his eyes adjusted. It was in total disarray, sheets all out of the mattress and blanket hanging half off the bed. The glass of water Arthur had filled right before Merlin crawled into bed was empty.

"Can't sleep."

"Well... At least you got some work done? Maybe you can go see Gaius tomorrow."

"I'm not taking _sleeping pills_, Merlin. When Morgana had nightmares in she was 14, that's all he did. And I didn't get any work done, either."

"What did you..." Had Arthur just been sitting there the whole time?

"It's like..." Arthur sighed. "I can pretty well ignore it during the day, I've got enough on my mind. But then I try to go to sleep and it's all back. I've come up with lots of ways to tell my father and have him think I'm crazy."

"He really wouldn't believe you?" Merlin asked, because it was one thing to declare your school a modern learning centre with no backwards focus on silly myths and rumours, but quite another to write off the opinions of your own son without even considering them.

"Absolutely not."

Merlin couldn't claim that, in the spirit of friendship and camaraderie, he'd stayed awake until breakfast, but he tried. He half-remembered bits of "I Spy," which Arthur tended to win because Merlin's eyes weren't actually open, and some sort of debate about which kind of milk was best. (Whole. Obviously).

When his alarm buzzed next to his head, he looked over and realised Arthur was actually sleep, one arm off the bed and a book below his dangling fingers. He couldn't have been asleep for long, but he _was_, and Merlin couldn't wake him at 7:00 just for breakfast.

So he hurried, ate only a cold meal and wrapped a pastry up in a napkin, stealing a mug of tea and running so it wouldn't get too cold. It did anyway, so he tapped it with one finger and it started steaming again.

Arthur was still out when he got back, but their first lesson was History and the professor was strict about attendance, so Merlin shook Arthur awake against his best judgement. Arthur was bleary eyes, obviously still exhausted, but he nodded and smiled wanly at the food and gulped the tea, then they brushed their teeth side by side in the the bathroom down the corridor.

The walk to class in the morning was always silent; not a one of the students alert enough for the shouts and ribbing that would come later in the day. In fact, most people kept their gaze so steadfastly down that Merlin didn't think a single person looked up as he and Arthur trudged to History.

\----

Mondays were busy, like the school planned to jolt the students sharply from their weekend reveries to prepare them for the next five days. It was effective, though it always left Merlin ready to drop after Chemistry tutorial, which took place the hour directly after dinner. There was no time to even consider figuring anything else out, barely enough to slide into his familiar desk chair and finish the _Macbeth_ Arthur had interrupted. Four separate people had tried to ask him about Arthur, but he'd essentially ignored them all. He still didn't exactly understand it himself, and he didn't want to become further grist for their high school gossip mill by exasperating the rumours with his own speculation.

The man himself bounded in late again, the same routine with the sweaty practise clothes already somehow familiar. It seemed he preferred to do homework on his bed to his desk, or at least that was where he stretched out with his own work. Perhaps it was to make it more comfortable when he promptly fell asleep on the open pages.

When he woke again -- a variation this time, Merlin's tenuous control of the wind had faltered and the flames themselves had roared out of control, engulfing Arthur and Allen Jones together -- Arthur was up again, sitting in bed with his back to the wall and a book open in his lap. His hand was spread across the pages in a way that precluded actual reading, though, and he was staring at Merlin with a frown changing his whole face, and eyebrows drawn down and eyes narrowed.

"Again, huh?" Merlin asked, trying to force his heart to slow down.

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?"

Merlin yawned. Just because his brain didn't want him to sleep or something, didn't mean his body didn't need it. He rolled over, propped himself up on his elbows to think.

This wasn't exactly his ideal solution, especially since they weren't in fairy-tale, happily-ever-after-la-la land. Because there, Arthur would be dashing and gallant and nice to everyone, not prickly and proud and overly sensitive about the silliest things. In fairy-tale land, Merlin probably wouldn't have started to like all those things, either.

He didn't want to be misinterpreted -- particularly because he couldn't even say to himself that it would be a misinterpretation. Not on all levels.

All he really knew was that he _wanted_ to, because he wanted to help and maybe for other reasons, but he could keep those reasons to himself. So that was all here was to it, he told himself, and quashed the roiling objections and doubts.

"Lie down," he decided.

"Why?"

"Just do it."

Arthur did, but he kept the same petulant expression the whole time, the one that said _I'm humouring you but I already know you're wrong_. It faltered but didn't slip off when Merlin swung his legs off the bed and gathered his thickest blanket around him. There was no way he was negotiating both a twin bed and a blanket.

"What are you doing?"

"Just... Shut it," Merlin said. "This is a last ditch effort."

Arthur watched him as he crossed the room, the haughty expression gone.

"My mum used to do this," Merlin said to fill the silence, pausing with only his hands braced lightly on the mattress, metaphorical support more than actual.

"Did it work?"

"It did when I was five. I think your other option is the drugging."

No reply, but Arthur moved slightly, towards the wall, and though Merlin didn't want to think about whether it was just to give him room or for Arthur to physically distance himself, it was undoubtedly permission, so he took it.

"What's your mother's name?" Arthur asked, voice low. He wasn't exactly looking at Merlin, but he was settling in, worming under his own blanket and orienting his pillow. Merlin had left his own on his bed, but he didn't know if he was up for the attempt to get it, crossing back to his own bed and massing the courage to come back to Arthur's.

"Hunith." It was odd to think of her that way, as anything other than _Mum_, from the perspective of someone other than himself. He wondered what Arthur would think of her, unassuming and slight but one of the strongest people he knew.

"Really?"

"Yes," Merlin said, a little defencive, of her. "Why, what's yours?" He turned his head to meet Arthur's eyes for the first time since he'd woken from the nightmare, expecting arched eyebrows or amused mouth, but Arthur's face was only thoughtful.

"Ygraine. Her name was Ygraine."

"Was?" Merlin asked before he could catch himself. He'd known, of course, that Arthur's mother wasn't around at school, but he'd always assumed she lived elsewhere, in the city or a fashionable estate in the countryside, something large with lakes and hunting dogs and orchards. Perhaps a divorce, but not-- "I'm... Sorry."

Arthur shrugged, and Merlin could feel how he twisted, uncomfortable, even through all the blankets.

"You can share mine," he offered, slow and sleepy, lulled by the soporific warm blankets and Arthur's body, unavoidably against his in the narrow bed, the low rumble of Arthur's voice. He was surprised; his heart had been pounding so hard at his decision he'd thought he might never sleep again.

"I think it's a little late for that," Arthur said, and Merlin shoved a hand lightly against whatever part of Arthur was pressed against his side, pleased at the lazy tone of Arthur's words.

He always had the best plans.

\----

Of course, plans that appeared optimal in the middle of the night under the influence of exhaustion didn't always hold up to the scrutiny morning, Merlin realised when he woke so tangled in his comforter he wasn't sure he could actually get out without rolling off the bed.

Arthur was already gone and Merlin's alarm hadn't gone off yet, but -- he looked at the clock -- it was set to in exactly one minute.

The desire to avoid its shrill blaring was enough to convince him to extricate himself from the blankets (and if he had to thump painfully to the floor to do it, well, no one was around to know) and get up.

Arthur's towel wasn't hanging on on its hook, and though morning was when Merlin also showered, he forwent it in favour of throwing on his clothes, grabbing the books he needed and running to early breakfast. He didn't like to not brush his teeth, but Gwen always had gum.

At lunch he and Gwen exchanged equally pointless explanations of what they'd figured out about possible ways to save Allen Jones. Arthur came in halfway and immediately met Merlin's eyes, but Merlin looked away. Arthur had made his feelings pretty clear, and Merlin didn't need to see them played out here, too.

Arthur sat with several of the girls who'd gone to the tennis match and been unable to comprehend why they players kept saying they loved each other.

The thing that stuck in his mind was, he pondered as he climbed the stairs after dinner and tried not to breathe through his nose, he didn't even know whether it had _worked_, or if Arthur had lain awake all night thinking Merlin was a creepy stalker who spent his days trying to figure out how to climb into bed with him. Which, not to say that he _wouldn't_, not by far, but that had been absolutely not the case, and there was also absolutely no good way to make that clear.

He was about to open the door when he heard a very unfortunately familiar voice from within.

"I won't say I understand your choice, but if you're sure then I obviously won't do anything."

He heard a sigh, and then Arthur said, "I honestly didn't think it would be this big a deal. I needed... I needed some help, anyway, with physics, and Merlin's good at it."

Merlin winced. Physics was one of his poorer subjects.

"Besides," Arthur continued, "I just... It's nice to talk to someone who knows about more than sports and cars, sometimes. He's not really like anyone else here. But if you're -- unhappy, or disappointed--"

"I'm not _disappointed_, Arthur," said Uther Pendragon. "I was just surprised. And I don't think you should do something you'll regret later, you've been friends with Leon and Garett for years."

Merlin couldn't imagine anything worse than appearing now, so he fled to the bathroom and read -- after brushing his teeth -- until he heard Uther's steady, slow footsteps recede down the hall. Two boys from other rooms came in and gave him weird looks, but he didn't even bother to explain.

Arthur was actually sitting at his desk when Merlin crept back in, holding his backpack defensively in front of him. He was staring straight ahead at the wall instead of finishing the Maths problem set in front of him.

"Er... Hello," Merlin said.

Arthur looked up, and then past him into the empty hallway. "You didn't see my father, did you?"

"Oh, no... I was, ah, brushing my teeth. Was he here?"

"Brushing your teeth?" Arthur repeated, and snorted. "He was. He asked why I switched rooms."

"What did you tell him?" Merlin prodded, because Arthur didn't elaborate. He also didn't go back to his work, or even staring at the wall, so maybe he would explain more. Maybe he would _explain_.

"I said you were helping me with physics," Arthur said.

They did their work in silence. The later time ticked, the more Merlin found himself fidgeting instead of reading, until finally he decided to just forestall any comment and brushed his teeth again, crawled into bed with the book he was meant to be finishing, and said, after a bit of an internal debate, "Goodnight, Arthur."

Arthur looked at him over the top of his book, which he'd moved to his bed to read again. "Goodnight, Merlin," he said back, voice serious.

That was the last thing Merlin really remembered, until he woke up the next morning with something tickling his nose.

It was Arthur's hair.

He wasn't proud, later, of how he'd handled the barrage of confusion and cold-stomached shock, but at the time he was glad that Arthur was between him and the wall again, which let him slide quickly out of the bed before he gave in to the powerful rising urge to breathe in too deeply, or to extend his arm and pull Arthur in closer, or to slide his leg between Arthur's.

There were several ready explanations for why Arthur had waited until Merlin was sleeping, but the most insidious, the one that was easiest to believe and that kept shoving through the other ones, was that he just hadn't wanted Merlin to know. He'd probably planned on waking up before Merlin again, escaping.

Well, thought Merlin, two can play at that game. He grabbed some clean clothes, tiptoed to the door and snagged his towel from the hook.

His plan to avoid Arthur -- now with the added fun of having to look out for Uther as well, in case he decided to quiz Merlin on physics or something -- went well all day, and he only had more expectations of success because Gwen and Morgana were in some exhibition match against a nearby school. Morgana was to do each type of weapon, Gwen only the epee and sabre; it was Merlin's understanding that while Morgana was the all-around champion, Gwen could beat even her at the epee and was a fair match in the sabre. They all looked exactly the same to him, but it was still thrilling, the whirling weapons and lightning movement.

Not that there was ever much of a crowd, the sport wasn't flashy enough to be truly popular with the students, not did its participants wear revealing costumes or celebrate gregariously upon a win.

Headmaster Pendragon was there as always, but based on past experience Merlin wasn't expecting him to pay any attention to the back rows.

No one ever did, in fact, so he pretty much always alone.

So he almost had a heart attack when Arthur sat down next to him, even though his mind immediately jumped to Gwen: "Arthur comes to all of our matches," which of course he'd promptly forgotten because he'd been distracted, and because he hadn't actually noticed Arthur at one before.

 

They didn't say anything, but Merlin felt comfortable, comfortable enough that he forgot he was supposed to be reining in his reactions and stood up to cheer for Gwen after she landed a particular impressive blow. Arthur yanked him back down by the wrist, but not before Uther turned around from the front row and focused on him. Merlin felt the sheepish tilt of his mouth, but the glare he was expecting from Uther never came.

 

\----

 

The breakthrough came on Thursday. It was at the cost of a section of Merlin's skin and a bit of his blood, but in the long run he considered it a worthy exchange.

 

The first part of it hadn't even been his fault, he'd been talking to some kid after Maths when a passing rugby player had swept abruptly around to say something to his companion and whacked Merlin right in the head with the stick he'd been carrying over his shoulder, and then everything started running together in his head but he was fairly sure his shirt had been ruined and that Arthur had shown up out of nowhere and started saying something insane about a concussion and essentially carried Merlin to the infirmary, where the school Doctor -- Merlin had called him the nurse once and earned himself the most chastising look he'd ever _seen_ \-- was reading some dusty old book by the window. Merlin had protested the treatment until the blood had run over his cupped hand and started dripping in a trail on the ground, which was kind of cool in a gruesome, fairy-tales-how-they-used-to-be sort of way, but not as much when it was your own blood congealing in drops behind you.

 

Of course he'd needed stitches, which Gaius had done with a steady, practised hand while Merlin tried not to notice how the thread pulled in conjunction with the tugs he could feel in his skin, which didn't hurt after a shot of anaesthetic, but it still wasn't something he exactly wanted to focus on. Arthur had stayed, Merlin's blood bright on his skin and even in his hair, until Gaius had made it clear that he wasn't getting excused from class and he'd had to run to make it in time.

 

Apparently Arthur's concussion fear was valid, though, so Gaius made him hang around the infirmary with electrodes to monitor his vitals for the rest of the day.

 

Gaius had gone out to take a phone call from someone's parent, and that was when Merlin found it. He was wandering through the room and Gaius's attached library, browsing through the haphazard stacks of books when he'd noticed one on the bottom of a pile that looked interesting. Feeling lazy, he decided to try to slide it out from under the others instead of moving them, which of course had set the whole stack tumbling, and after he'd rescued them all, he'd looked back at the shelf, and he'd seen it. There was another book, flat against the backboard, so it would have been hidden by the intact tower. It was plain, discoloured paperback binding without title or label, only a _bloody blue diamond embossed on the cover_.

 

It was open and in his hand before he'd even processed his gasp of recognition.

 

He hadn't dared actually read it, but on the title page was a more detailed image, with sharp cuts, and he recognised it. He knew it. So he'd hurried back to the seat Gaius had left him in, too excited to be bored any longer, hoping the symptoms of his shock wouldn't manifest to Gaius as some sort of consequence of his injury that required him to stay the night.

 

His backpack seemed to have been left outside, so he didn't even have anywhere to put it. He decided just to sit on it, and hope that it wouldn't be long before Gaius let him leave.

 

After another couple of hours, during which Gaius tried to enquire into the his studies and how he was liking the school -- he was some sort of distant relative of Merlin's mum's, actually, not that Merlin recalled meeting him before he'd come to school here, so it wasn't too surprising that he was exhibiting the interest, except that he'd never really gone out of his way to speak to Merlin before. Merlin was so distracted he knew he was seeming rude in his brusque answers, but he couldn't find it in himself to care. Especially since the very presence of the book, grateful for it as he was, made Gaius a suspicious figure in his mind.

 

Gwen and Morgana showed up after dinner, the former all concern and wide eyes while Morgana surveyed him carefully before pronouncing she was glad he'd live. He smiled back.

 

"Seven stitches," he declared like it was seven hundred.

 

"Such a courageous young man," she said. Gwen laughed.

 

"Especially in the face of certain death by infection," she agreed.

 

Merlin frowned dramatically. "The doctor swore that rusty needle was sterile!"

 

"I'd be more worried about catching something from your roommate," Morgana said.

 

"I'm sure you have lots of experience in catching things," Arthur said from the doorway. He had Merlin's backpack in one hand.

 

"Merlin, I think you should be fine," Gaius said, back at the desk by window where he'd been that morning. "The aspirin should keep your headache down, if it starts to hurt despite it, call me immediately."

 

"Good!" Merlin sighed, but. "Can I, uh... Have my backpack, for a second?"

 

Arthur curled his lip, but he must have still been feeling generous, because he walked it over. Merlin opened it and pretended to check the contents, then risked a glance over at Gaius, who was facing away from him the desk like he had been since he'd abandoned their stilted conversation. He quickly slid the book in and zipped it shut.

 

"What--" Arthur began, and Merlin flashed him a fierce _for god's sake, shut up_ look, then stood casually.

 

"Uh, thanks, Gaius," he said. "Um... sometime next week we should, ah... Have tea?"

 

Gaius closed the book, keeping one finger in to mark his place. "I would like that, Merlin."

 

"Great, ah -- I'll be in touch, then. Goodnight!"

 

Arthur barely waited until they were down the hall to start the questions again, but Merlin was still feeling paranoid. Gwen and particularly Morgana looked curious, as well, but they had a weekend tournament for which they departed around five in the morning, so they couldn't stay.

 

He dropped the backpack as soon as Arthur closed the door, jumping onto his bed and opening the book.

 

"Your shirt's a bloody mess," Arthur pointed out, but Merlin waved him to silence.

 

"This is far more important," he said. "I found it hidden on one of Gaius' shelves."

 

"Hidden?" Arthur said, hesitating in the middle of the room.

 

"Yes! Get up here!" Merlin said. Potential awkwardness would have to wait, though he couldn't help but pay attention to the way the mattress dipped under Arthur, tilted them a little bit more towards each other.

 

"That's--" Arthur said, staring at the cover.

 

"I know, I know."

 

The beginning wasn't too revelatory, though the biography did have more information than the library books had -- especially about particular details, atrocities mostly, of Sigan's magic talent. It brought on another wave of uneasiness, worry that this was what Merlin could be. What others thought him to be already.

 

He yawned, huge and unexpected, just as they were approaching the familiar parliament incident.

 

"Lie down," Arthur advised. "You lost a lot of blood."

 

He did without really thinking about it, on his back with the book in both hands above him, and Arthur spread out next to him, pointing at something on the page and saying, "That wasn't there before."

 

Merlin wrinkled his nose; it hadn't been, and frankly he'd have been better off with the other version.

 

"Do you still think it couldn't be magic?" he asked suddenly.

 

Arthur's finger slid off the page, dropped down to rest fingertips and palm on Merlin's chest, where he tapped out three beats before he answer.

 

"There certainly seem to have been a lot of people who believed in it," he allowed.

 

Merlin closed the book and dropped it to the floor beside the bed. "There were."

 

"But it seems strange, at the same time, for something to be so thoroughly debunked if it was totally real not that long ago."

 

"That's true," Merlin agreed. He'd always been so certain of magic that he'd never actually thought of it that way. "But when people--" _like your father_, he didn't say "-- work to make that happen, it's not quite the same, you know?"

 

"I know. But it's still... Not something I can just accept."

 

Merlin made a noise for assent, twining his now-free hand in his sheet.

 

"You don't seem to have much of a problem with that," Arthur said. "The acceptance bit."

 

"I guess not." He thought about how to qualify that, but Arthur didn't seem to actually need an answer.

 

"How's your head?" he asked. Merlin shrugged; the stitches felt weird and were on the side of his head he liked to sleep on, but they were alright.

 

"You'll have to change up your routine," Arthur said. "Go to sleep if you're tired."

 

It turned out he was very tired.

 

\----

 

The first time he woke was just because he really, really, had to pee. He brushed his teeth, too, and noticed when he looked in the mirror above the sink that his shirt was stained dark with blood.

 

He stripped it off in the room, but the undershirt was messy as well, so that went along with his shoes. Arthur was still wearing fully dressed above the covers. Merlin crawled to the corner of the bed and tapped Arthur lightly to wake him.

 

He blinked in the darkness, bemused and sleepy, and complied slowly when Merlin tugged the blankets, toeing off his shoes and folding his legs to slide them under.

 

It was different, because it was so deliberate an invitation and acceptance, because Merlin wasn't wearing a shirt. He laid down on his back and Arthur curled in close, warm through his clothes.

 

"Gonna sleep in a button down?" he murmured.

 

Arthur just mumbled something in response, voice slackening on each syllable. He wrapped one arm around Merlin's waist, and Merlin sighed.

 

He didn't know why he woke the next time, only that it had been from a dream -- but a very pleasant one, and he took a moment to dwell on it , wiggling further under the sheets, which were quite warm, and --

 

Oh. Oh yes. Quite warm because he was _not alone_, because of course he couldn't have his bloody sex dreams while he was alone, no, he got to have them with the Headmaster's son in his bed. And not even in a good way.

 

Maybe not, at least.

 

He was on the bad side, the one he wasn't supposed to be on, but his head was leant a little back, supported by his left hand under his cheek. He could feel Arthur hard against his arse just as he could feel Arthur's lips soft against the back of his neck, Arthur's hand heavy on his belly. It felt like all the heat in his body was pooling down right below Arthur's fingers, which brushed against the taut fabric of his uniform trousers with Merlin's every breath.

 

He shifted, trying to figure out how to cause the least disturbance on his panicked run to go wank in the bathroom, but Arthur just rolled back into him when he tried to move, pushed his hips forward with the leaden slow movements of the half-asleep.

 

Merlin could feel the change in his breath when Arthur woke fully. The drag of mouth on his neck as Arthur drew back made him shiver, once all the way down his body, and Arthur stilled against him.

 

No one moved for a handful of crucial seconds, then Arthur shifted back in, just a bit, and flattened his hand so it was half on the skin of Merlin's stomach, half on the fabric of his trousers. They could stay like this, Merlin realised, until they both came and then jerk apart, never say anything, clean up and go to class and maybe never figure anything out, or --

 

He turned, slow and deliberate so he could feel the path of Arthur's hand as he slid under it until they were looking into each other's eyes.

 

Arthur touched one finger to Merlin's temple, just under the stitches that went back into his hair, or rather the bald spot that Gaius had cropped around the stitches, where hopefully his hair would grow back soon.

 

"Arthur," Merlin began; in response Arthur dropped his gaze back to Merlin's face, though the evaluating expression stayed. Merlin wasn't actually sure what to say, though, especially when Arthur settled his hand over Merlin's cheekbone. It was as obvious a sign as he'd probably ever get, which meant it was his turn again. He pushed off the elbow trapped under his body, leaned in just a little and paused, just to make sure. Arthur didn't move, exactly, but his eyes locked with Merlin's and his mouth parted, so Merlin skipped Arthur's turn and took another himself, the rest of the infinitesimal, infinitely important distance between them gone.

 

Arthur kissed him back without art, hard and deep with the hand that seized the seam of Merlin's trousers and twisted, bringing their hips together in a jolt of searing pleasure. Merlin moaned _yes_ and _good idea_ into Arthur's mouth, sent his tongue along with them to stroke along Arthur's. He could feel Arthur down the whole length of his front, a smooth line with his legs angled in, tangled in with his own, foot moving up and down the back of his calf. It made him shiver again, which made Arthur gasp deep into his mouth and thrust up harder against him. His lips were smooth and wet, and they fit perfectly against Merlin's whether in the soft beginnings of a kiss or deeper, later, surging in with his tongue and clacking teeth.

 

It was too hot under all the sheets, so Merlin broke free just to push them down, then let Arthur pull him back down, impatient. He manoeuvred Arthur onto his back, settled in mostly on top, all the while trying to interfere as little as possible with the movement of his hips, because that was the most important part.

 

Arthur must have agreed; his response to the shuffling of positions was to slide one hand hard down Merlin's back and under his clothes, fingers digging individual points into his arse. Merlin moaned, moved back to bite down on his lip. Arthur dropped his gaze, watching, then spread the other hand across one of his shoulder blades to draw him slowly back in.

 

He dug in with one knee, used the leverage to slide more into Arthur's body and grasped tighter with both hands: one grabbing the shoulder of Arthur's shirt to brace him, the other slid under it and gripping the hot, smooth skin of his side. Arthur turned his head, lips sliding slick and amazing against his own. Merlin sucked the lower into his mouth, ran his tongue over the edge before he released it. This time it was Arthur who shivered, and Merlin understood Arthur's reaction from before.

 

Arthur flipped them over, swift and abrupt, leaving Merlin staring suddenly up at Arthur and his glassy blue eyes, his reddened hair and cheeks and his mussed hair. He ran a hand through it, all five fingers over his scalp and then tightening, drawing Arthur down. Arthur came quite willingly, whole body settling over his own. His mouth slackened, and Merlin didn't protest because he'd shifted his purpose to his hips, aligning with Merlin in a firm shimmying thrust that Merlin arched up to meet. It wasn't long before Merlin was grabbing the sheets with both hands, and wondering how many teeth marks he'd have in his shoulder after Arthur bit down into the rounded rise of his bicep as he came.

 

The third time he woke, it was time to get up for class. He could have slept in a little longer, but he knew how much he needed to shower. He could only imagine the various fluids covering him, not least among them blood still in his hair.

Arthur's arm tightened around his waist when he stirred, then released him immediately. He looked up and Arthur was watching him, a little bleary but also a little wary.

"Running off to the shower again?" he asked.

"You did it first!" Merlin protested reflexively, ignoring the real issue because it was too much of a leap for him to confront on his own. If they were going to have the conversation, he wasn't doing it alone. "And then you ran out while I was in the shower!"

"Well you did _that_ first, you know." Arthur still looked cautious, but not quite so on edge. Merlin supposed that, clumsy though it was, they actually _were_ discussing it. He paused.

"I thought you'd sneaked into the shower so you didn't have to talk to me," he admitted.

"Oh." Merlin kind of wished he had a record of all Arthur's "revelation faces," the ones where he learnt something new about the state of the world and the effects of his crazy behaviour. "I was just trying to let you sleep. Since you'd stayed up to... Help."

Merlin ducked his forehead to the sheets. "Oh," was all he could think to say. "Well... Sorry, then."

Arthur huffed out a breath and tapped the fingers still left resting on Merlin's back. "I guess we both should have been... More clear."

"Guess so," Merlin agreed, grinning. "I'm going to shower, then. Not to avoid you, I'm just extremely messy."

Arthur cocked his head. "Extremely? Not yet, you're not." He yanked Merlin back in and rolled on top him, bringing his mouth down to mess up Merlin's neck a bit more.

Arthur wasn't in the most of his lessons that day, which was good because Arthur kept _looking_ at him, and Merlin kept looking back, and then they would look at each other like they were in a film or something, and he wasn't sure how well that would go over in English Lit.

But he was there when Merlin got back, and they exchanged another of those looks before Merlin dropped his backpack and jumper on the floor and Arthur backed him up to the desk, pressed his mouth in hard and demanding like he pressed Merlin into the wood.

"Don't -- ah -- bend much more than that," Merlin said when Arthur dipped his head to mouth hot long his jaw and then under, the long, indescribably sensitive line of his neck.

"Oh," Arthur mumble-mouthed into Merlin pulse, then cupped both hands firmly under Merlin's ass and lifted him onto the top of the desk. Merlin's cup of writing utensils went to the floor in his feet's place, and he only hoped they didn't somehow explode a pen all over before Arthur was lifting his shirt over his head. His bare chest against Merlin's was heart-stopping, hot and smooth with slight pebbled differentiations for his nipples, constantly in flux with his breath.

Just the taste wasn't enough, so Merlin ran his left hand down Arthur's side, over the ridges of his ribs and hard jut of his his hip bone. It stopped at Arthur's trousers, so he used the other to unthread Arthur's belt and undo the button, pull the zipper open from the right angle and slide both layers down so he could slide down further and cup the curve of Arthur's flank. He could move it back the other way, around the front to the coarse beginnings of hair and then _down_, but as much as he wanted to crawl forward until they were indistinguishable, absolutely one, he didn't need that, not yet, so he just raised his right leg and hooked it over the rise of Arthur's arse, pulled him in.

Arthur cursed against his lips, pushed both hands down the back of Merlin's pants to pull him closer bodily.

Merlin's foot caught on the desk, pushed him forward so far Arthur overbalanced, took several awkward staggering steps backwards, tripping once on his own dragging clothes, and brought Merlin with him. He impacted hard against Merlin's bed, stopped leaning a little awkwardly into it. Merlin was several inches taller than him from his angle. He always was a bit, but it was emphasised like this.

He grinned against Arthur's lips, not even really sure what he was smiling for. Or what Arthur was when he echoed it, followed it up by biting into Merlin's earlobe and opening Merlin's trousers, tugging them down like his own. He pulled Merlin's boxers down, as well, until Merlin's cock sprung free, hard and wet at the tip. Merlin heard his own strangled gasp, but he was far more busy with the feel of Arthur's hand and its one lazy, loose-handed stroke down. He left it idly gripped at the base. Merlin thrust forward instinctively, following the sensation, which brought the sensitive head of his cock against Arthur's once. The hot bare skin, unyielding, was nothing like the restrained friction of cloth-on-cloth from the morning.

He was gripping Arthur's biceps in both hands, eyes jerked to the source of the pleasure. He flicked his gaze to Arthur's face, once, and noticed he was doing the same.

So Merlin thrust slowly up again, rocked forward on his toes and watched the shudder of pleasure move all the way down Arthur, the bob of his throat and he gasped in a breath and the tightening of his fingers on Merlin's bed. Again. Again. The wetness from them both slid between them, hot and slick.

He looked up again, caught Arthur looking right at him so he met his gaze, held it and kept going. He watched Arthur's face darken, and slacken, watched the flush spread from his cheeks down his neck and over his chest. The he leaned in further as he sped up, sucked a mouthful of skin at the juncture of Arthur's shoulder and neck hard and then harder and Arthur's grip tightened and his breath shortened, until he gasped throatily and came, cock jerking against Merlin's and come wet between them. Merlin thrust a few more times, long strokes through Arthur's cupped grip, then came as well.

They fell asleep in an awkward position, Arthur's right arm a little too high under Merlin's left, but he didn't feel like complaining. He woke up hungry at 9:30, far too late for food, and resigned himself to whatever stale crackers he had left of the last package from home.

But Arthur said, "Kitchen run," when he rolled over, and Merlin stopped.

"Huh?"

"Kitchen raid, Merlin. Don't tell me you've never done one. No, of course you haven't."

There was a kitchen window you could wiggle open from the outside, and if you were either good at everything athletic like Arthur, or very wiggly and not very heavy in the first place, like Merlin, you could use it to sneak right in. Merlin crept around trying to be stealthy, but Arthur turned on the light and stood in the centre, surveying the room like he owned it. He practically did, but still.

"Shouldn't you _not_ do that?" Merlin hissed, like talking in a normal voice would be the thing that gave them away. This was the last thing he needed on his record, and he was sure they'd be glad to punish him for it when Arthur was so untouchable.

"Never got me caught before," Arthur said, "but, here," and he flipped the switch back down with exaggerated care. Somehow it seemed more forbidden in the dim light of the school's lamp posts outside.

Judging by the way he immediately opened the the refrigerator with the desserts, Arthur had done this quite a lot. The biscuits he pulled out weren't what Merlin would have selected, but they were better than nothing. He slid down the door to the dining room to eat them in bits, looking at all the gleaming stainless steel pots and utensils, hanging in an ordered array and casting eerie shadows. Arthur perched on one of the huge prep tables, under a series of knives hanging suspended from a magnetic strip like horror film set.

After they finished, Arthur followed him into the bathroom and smiled at him in the mirror with his mouth full of toothpaste suds while they both brushed their teeth. Back in the room, he stripped off his own shirt and then Merlin's, then he put his hands on Merlin's waist and pushed him back to the bed. Merlin let him, mostly because his ideas were solid, but also because he was generally, head wound and missed dinner and all, feeling very content about life right now.

\----

That lasted through the night, Arthur warm in the bed beside him and then too warm, so he had to throw back the covers some time before dawn.

In the morning, though, he looked down at the book, forgotten and shoved half under the bed, and could have kicked himself. Here he was, dabbling in some sort of adolescent boarding school stereotype that _obviously_ wasn't anything serious, when he had something far more important to do.

Arthur slept straight through the first few dozen pages he read, drooling into the pillow with his forehead stuck against Merlin's hip. It was both devastatingly intimate and surprisingly familiar like this, sprawled in his underwear, reading in bed with Arthur Pendragon beside him.

There was a long chapter on rumours and the the degrees of truth evidence lent to each one, but the next one...

The next one was when he knew he'd found what they needed.

"The efforts to find the stone and resurrect the greatest wizard who ever lived," Merlin breathed.

They'd begun, he informed Arthur when the latter finally stopped snoring, almost immediately after his disappearance. Apparently he'd confided in his dogsbody, a thief named Cedric who'd been bound to Sigan in some way that wasn't quite explained, that he was just "separating" himself, and that under the right circumstances and with the right ritual, his soul could be established anew in a donor body. There was no information on what actually happened to the person whose body was selected; apparently they weren't important.

"And that was going to be me," Arthur said, grimacing spectacularly.

"Looks like it."

"Suppose I can't be too angry with them, they only picked me because I'm such a perfect specimen."

"Of prathood?"

"Please, Merlin, I might have fallen for that _before_, but after--" he stopped, and Merlin looked up from the book to figure out why.

Arthur was _blushing_.

"After _what_, Arthur?"

Arthur smiled wolfishly back at him, refusing the bait of Merlin's fake-innocent smile. "I'll show you what," he said, slung one thigh over Merlin's extended legs, facing him, and closed the book.

\----

The section about the ritual requirements was very clear on the main festival nights as a time when the procedure could be easily done, but outside of those there was a lot of malarkey about the lady at her nadir and the focusing stones that neither of them could make head nor tail of. He wasn't even sure they were referring to the same thing, but it went through all the steps he remembered, the oatcake and the apple peel and even the fire jumping. Then there was a long section on everything they needed a watcher -- The watcher, actually, there was apparently only one -- for. It seemed only the watcher knew where the stone was and knew the exact words of the ritual. Again, Merlin felt what he didn't know far outweighed what he did, but in this it seemed he and the book's author were alike.

"I don't remember any stones there," Merlin decided.

"Do you think we missed them?" Arthur wondered. They looked at each other, concerned.

And that was how they ended up quite a handful of kilometres over the speed limit, Morgana's car -- Arthur insisted she wouldn't mind, and since she and Gwen were both away for a tourney, Merlin decided to just go with it and pray she never found out -- smooth on the asphalt and the radio playing something he didn't recognise.

Of course, the GPS wouldn't direct them to "creepy Druid campground" as Arthur had commanded it to, so he had to call Ben to get the actual name and address.

"This isn't going to help the rumours," Ben advised him, and Merlin shouted, "What!" into the phone but he'd already hung up.

"What'd he say?" Arthur asked.

Merlin thought about how much to disclose.

"Got the address," he said. He couldn't really decide what Arthur would think about rumours. He was probably pretty used to them; Merlin had heard dozens by now, but considering he didn't even know what the rumours actually said, he didn't want to start debating their effect.

Arthur grumbled about taking too long the entire time Merlin keyed in the address, and yes, he did mess it up a few times, but Arthur was the one who had experience with the system, so why was _Merlin_ the one dealing with it?

He started to recognise the spread of the petrol stations and roadside restaurants from the drive up, mostly because he'd spent it staring out the window and trying to ignore the fact that people were throwing a frisbee around in the back of the bus and calling whoever couldn't catch it "gay."

The parking lot was empty and the large building they'd trooped into for presentation was dark. They walked right past them all, wound around until they were approaching the fateful field. Next they had a brief spat on which direction Merlin had run in, and Merlin tried not to gloat too obviously when it turned out he'd been right ("We'll go your way first, Merlin, but just to prove I'm right.")

Arthur made Merlin hold his hand down the hill, which was somehow both more and less deadly in the light.

Streaks of ash still marred the field, and a decaying pile of logs marked where the bonfire had been, but as they'd both suspected, no rocks. They made a sweep of the area, just to make sure, and round about their fourth concentric, tightening circle, Merlin started to really think they were on a fool's errand. Maybe not the best sudden stroke of genius they'd ever had. No, that would be...

He smiled to himself. He knew what he would pick for best idea.

\----

They were waiting in Gwen and Morgana's room on Sunday night, Gaius' book in hand and probably more questions than before they'd seen it. Morgana was carrying a huge, shining plaque -- Merlin was pretty sure the school was supposed to keep those, but he doubted anyone was telling _her_ that -- and they both looked exhausted, but took the book and promised to attempt to decipher it.

"Just... Be careful," Merlin warned.

"Merlin," Morgana said, raising her eyebrows at him. It was the look he always imagined her giving to an opponent who made the mistake of underestimating her, under her mask and just before she broke through their guard and curved the long blade into their chest.

"Right, of course you will. Uh... Congrats, then."

"Thank you," she said, gracious. "By the way, if you scratched my car, you're fixing it with your toothbrush."

"How did you--" Merlin said.

"It seems there's two people in here who can park a car and two who can't," she said.

Arthur mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like, "Bah, humbug." Merlin made the mistake of looking at Gwen, and the obvious signs of a suppressed smile on her face caught his own and he was laughing before he could stop himself.

\----

He was too excited to be chagrined at his and Arthur's apparent total lack of imagination when, two days later, they all skipped out on dinner in favour of holing up in the girls' room, sitting on the floor and eating takeaway that wasn't technically allowed unless you were the Headmaster's step-daughter.

"We think we might have it," Gwen said. "Not sure, since we don't have a handbook for deciphering crazy talk, but..."

"The lady's the moon," Morgana finished. "We thought she was a person at first, especially since you said it was a woman in charge before, but if you read over some of the other parts they talk about her more, and they never say anything about it except referencing moon phases. So... The moon."

"Okay, so if they want to try again, they have to do it at the new moon?" Merlin asked.

"Sounds like it. Or at least, they think so. It all sounds a little silly to me, the hopping and stuff."

"Do you... Not believe they're going to do it?"

She looked briefly at Gwen, then down at her curry. "It's... Far-fetched, certainly. And hard to believe. But I think the people who say there was never any magic are short-sighted, or delusional, even. Far too many people believed in it -- they say William of Orange used it to entertain foreign monarchs. And too much doesn't make sense without it, Stonehenge and--"

"Stonehenge!" said Merlin.

"I know," she continues, "they couldn't have just _lifted_ them all, and--"

"No, no!" he said. "The focusing stones! There's -- that's what they used to use them for, they would conduct ceremonies there and--"

"So they'll be at Stonehenge?" Arthur interrupted.

"Well, maybe not? There's a bunch of different henges, though I guess most of them weren't made with stones so they couldn't be the focusing stones. But even with just rock, there's more than one. Does it say--?"

Gwen already had the book open, eyes flicking quickly over the pages. "It doesn't seem to say anything specific," she said.

"Damn it damn it," Merlin cursed, resting his head on one knee. He'd thought they'd _nailed_ it.

"It might later," Gwen offered. "Hopefully about this watcher fellow, too."

"Where did you get this, anyway? I didn't even think about it til now," Morgana said.

Merlin looked at Arthur, but his mouth was full of the giant piece of chicken he'd just speared from Merlin's food.

"I found it in Gaius' office," he admitted.

"Gaius?" Gwen asked.

"The physician," Morgana supplied absently, eyes narrowed in thought. "Doctor Knox. He just _had_ it? On a shelf?"

"Not exactly," Merlin said. "Do you think he'd know?"

"Perhaps," she said. "He always was a little new-agey. I never understood why Uther lets him wear dresses around when he's so strict with everyone else."

"He couldn't be one of them," Arthur said. "Father would never let him on the grounds."

"Unless he didn't know," Morgana pointed out. "I don't know him very well, do you?" she asked, looking at Merlin.

"Not really... He used to know my mother, I think he was somehow involved in how I came here, but I've never really known him."

"I don't really see him as the type to support all of this," she said, waving at the book.

"Me either," Arthur agreed. "I don't think we can just ask him, though. We'll have to try to figure it out on our own."

"At least we know how much time we have now," Gwen said. "Ten days until the new moon, we can figure it out in ten days."

It was a bright thought, enough for the others to smile over and return to their meal, but all it led to in Merlin's mind was the next few enquiries, chiefly how were they going to actually stop it, and how the hell was he going to tell them that he suspected _he_ would have to do it alone?

\----

Because he had somehow learnt, in less than two weeks, all the details of Arthur's daily schedule, he knew that on Wednesday, Arthur had another tennis match, for which he would be warming up after class. Merlin had a few hours to escape into the woods and quietly freak out about what he was going to _do_.

Shockingly enough, freaking out didn't actually bring him any closer to a solution. His biggest concern -- heaped on top of the other ones about how would they know where to go and would they all hate him afterwards and would Arthur decide his father really did know best -- was that because the stone was magic and the ritual was magic, they would need more magic to stop it. And, well, magic he had, but didn't mean he knew what to _do_ with it.

And he was pretty sure about who he needed to ask.

He pushed that thought aside and trudged back to campus, because apparently this was an actually skilled opponent, and he'd sworn up and down he wouldn't miss the match.

His own tension combined with his second-hand nerves for Arthur, who was obviously facing a much better fight than usual. Gwen looked concerned in her empathetic way, and Morgana was sitting with the same faux-casual posture as last time, but Merlin found he could barely stay still.

He finally stood, pretending it was just to get a better view, and noticed Uther in the front row, slightly to the side Arthur was currently serving from. He seemed as stern and implacable as always, but his hands in their leather gloves were clenched tight, and when Arthur smashed a perfect return shot, Uther was the first the realise the visiting player wouldn't be able to chase it down, and the first to clap politely in praise.

This victory seemed more important to Arthur, who returned the congratulatory handshake his father offered and then cast a general triumphant beam over everyone else who'd come to do the same. There was definitely an extra bounce to his step as they walked back to their room, so settled and _domestic_ that it was almost dependable, but Merlin was wary of that thought. The path stretched in front of them, illuminated by the sporadic lamp posts, and Arthur's hand brushed against his with each of his exaggerated strides.

Merlin insisted half-heartedly, not actually expecting results, that Arthur shower if he was going to try to crawl into Merlin's bed. But Arthur, albeit with a put-upon expression, actually did it. He'd looked for a moment like he was just going to drop the towel and climb right in, a prospect Merlin greeted with both anticipation and apprehension in his head, but then he'd gone for the underwear drawer. His hair was still wet when he did crawl into Merlin's bed, spreading a damp stain across the pillow that Arthur kept inching away from until Merlin was practically wedged into the wall and Arthur's head mostly on his shoulder. Once he'd satisfactorily splayed himself across the majority of the bed like a beached whale, he fell asleep almost immediately, and only then did Merlin give in to his desire to smooth the clumped, drying strands back from his face.

It wasn't that he didn't trust Arthur, exactly, but two weeks ago he'd been "accidentally" dropping his used napkins in Merlin's soup, and it was easy to imagine all of this as some sort of misplaced, you're-the-only-one-who-understands camaraderie, or lust, even, based on spending a night crashing through the woods and wading through a bevy of smoke-addled Druids trying to make him the vessel for their reincarnated lord and master.

He was getting to know the determined set of Arthur's jaw when he entered "time to fight evil" mode. It was different from tennis killer mode and from lessons mode, and Arthur slipped into it surprisingly easily, like he was made for it.

At the same time, though, he was seeing the side of Arthur that grew from not having a truly compassionate figure in his life, pretty much ever -- the side that didn't always know how to form an actual relationship with another person, or understand how to react to an unexpected demonstration of affection. Arthur had said to him once something about how he always ended up over-explaining himself to his father in an attempt to make him comprehend and hopefully support Arthur's decisions. At first Merlin had thought back to eavesdropping in the hallway, Arthur's stilted, formal tone as he lied about Merlin's physics skills, and disagreed, but then he'd thought more, of a more hesitant voice just saying he wanted something _else_, and thought that maybe he got it. What Arthur considered over-explaining, too much information, given to his reticent father, was what most people considered talking to their family.

It was far easier, though, to admit Arthur's dependability as an ally in stopping a pack of deranged ritualistic kidnappers, than to trust him with Merlin himself. On that front, it was far too easy to doubt. Especially since in one way he'd been lying to Arthur about probably the most important thing he could, and he had no idea how to change that.

\----

He jerked out of his first Allen-Jones-related nightmare in so long that he'd half-forgotten them, but all the others came rushing back, too, and he heaved in a deep, calming breath, curled into Arthur a little bit even though he was clammy with sweat.

It wasn't even the images that got to him, but the hard, pervasive awareness of something _wrong_ that didn't fade for hours, that left him uneasy and restless, starting at shadows until morning.

This time, though, Arthur stirred next to him, burrowing his face into Merlin's neck and flexing the arm around Merlin's ribs.

"Okay?" he mumbled, lips tickling just above his collarbone.

"Yeah," Merlin replied, voice surprisingly rough, hoarse.

" 'S just a dream," Arthur said, one hand coming up clumsily -- not surprising, since he was still half-asleep and not actually looking -- to stroke Merlin's hair, damp with sweat like it was Merlin who'd just come from a shower.

"I know," Merlin whispered. He closed his eyes again, tried to slow down his breathing and hopefully his heart.

Arthur picked his head up, eyes squinty and not fully aware as he met Merlin's gaze.

"Just a dream," he repeated firmly.

"I know," Merlin repeated back. "Go back to sleep."

"You go back to sleep," Arthur said petulantly, and Merlin chuckled.

"I will," he said.

"Don't believe you." He leaned back enough to lift himself off Merlin's side, then prodded Merlin's shoulder until he was lying on his back. Arthur slid over him, bent elbows so he was leaning on his forearms, braced on either side of Merlin's head.

"Nothing -- you -- can do -- right now," he said with small kisses between every couple of syllables, light but firm, familiar on Merlin's lips like he knew just how to angle his head so they fit together right. Merlin smiled back against his mouth as he kept going. "Besides -- they're probably -- all -- sleeping right now so -- can't -- let -- them -- win."

Merlin wasn't exactly sold on that logic, but far be it from him to argue with Arthur Pendragon hovering mostly naked over him, gasping against Merlin's lips when he grabbed Arthur's arse and pushed up at the same time. He could feel the hot imprint of Arthur's skin wherever it had touched him, like it had burned away the sweat and chill with its heat alone.

Arthur opened his mouth and Merlin licked in, Arthur's tongue slick and soft, his skin smooth under Merlin's hands.

He didn't know whether it was because it was such a contrast after the dream and the weight of sleep, or just _because_, but when he thrust up into the friction on his hardening cock, it felt so good he cried out, like he'd been waiting all night for it, all week. Arthur just pressed down harder against him, groaning into him and settling his legs around Merlin's.

He wasn't sure what he wanted, probably couldn't have articulated it even if he were, but he did know that _more_ would suffice for now, so he ceased the seeking circle of his hips long enough to reach his hands down and yank away both his and Arthur's pants, take Arthur's cock in one hand and his own in his left, not the usual way he did things so it was a little awkward. A little awkward and ridiculous, maybe, fast and desperate but worth it for the way Arthur moaned brokenly into his neck, left his mouth open on Merlin's skin, lips and tongue wet against him and moving as he thrust into Merlin's hand, sliding hot and cold between the air and his breath.

Merlin sped up his hands, a little clumsy and trying not to grip too hard, fingertips sliding through the precome on the head of Arthur's cock with every stroke. Arthur tensed above him, started murmuring, "Oh God oh God ohgodohogodogod," jerked erratically into Merlin's hands and then fisted all ten fingers into Merlin's hair, gasping loud, half-voiced cries into Merlin's ear as he came.

He switched hands, used the one slick with Arthur's come on himself, and it only took two hard strokes like that before he too was spurting onto their stomachs. Arthur's nose was pressed to the wet spot on his neck, he was still breathing hard. He started squirming, and Merlin realised it was to remove his messy, bunched boxers, which he used to wipe them both off and then tossed them the off the side of the bed.

Merlin's pants were practically off already, the elastic halfway down his arse and somehow still ruined, so he stripped them off, too, left them somewhere by his feet.

They didn't wake up again until it was practically time to run for breakfast, so he hadn't time for shower and ended up walking around all day with his shirt brushing strange over his stomach.

In English, Arthur looked up from across the room once just as Merlin was lifting it away from his skin, and met Merlin's eye with a suggestive raised brow. Instead of looking away or blushing, Merlin imitated it right back, and almost laughed out loud when it was Arthur who flushed.

\----

So then they had about twenty-four such hours, Arthur obviously unsure how to comport himself in their tenuous situation, but not in the uncomfortable way Merlin had thought was a possibility. Instead, he was giving Merlin long, somewhat indecipherable looks, smiling unexpectedly at comments he previously might have scoffed at. Merlin would smile back, and he meant it, more than he wanted to admit, but every time he did he felt more guilty. If Arthur had exceeded his expectations in so many ways -- not that he wasn't still an ass in so many ways -- who was to say he couldn't do the same for the most important issue of all?

He was fortunate, in a cop-out sort of way, that the issue got decided for him.

On Friday afternoon he was handed a note by some lower student he'd never seen before.

"Merlin," he read, "I would be pleased if you would join me for tea today, Gaius."

Arthur shouldered his tennis bag. "Won't get a better chance. I'd tell you to use your subtle skills of espionage, but I don't actually think you have any. So you'll just have to do whatever it takes."

"Thanks, Arthur," Merlin said dryly.

"I do mean _whatever_, Merlin," Arthur said, looking at him suggestively.

"That's disgusting!" he protested.

"We all have to make sacrifices for the greater good," Arthur said archly, and loped off to practice. Merlin made a mental note to tell him later how stupid he looked running with the bag.

Gaius had tea set up on a plain but expensive-looking set, much better fare than the school put out for the break between classes.

The small talk was a little strained, especially since Merlin kept trying to figure out how to segue a question about his Maths teacher into _about that cult book you had that I stole..._ and forgetting an actual response for the original query. He didn't know why Gaius himself kept pausing awkwardly as well, but figured it out when Gaius took a long, crooked-browed look at him and said, "I don't mean for this to come out wrong, but I noticed yesterday that some of my books had been moved, and now I can't find one. I know it's a little haphazard in there, so I wouldn't be surprised if you'd knocked them over and simply put one back in the wrong place. It's very valuable to me personally, and I wouldn't want to lose it."

Merlin panicked. Only internally, he hoped, but he wasn't sure how long his playing it cool act could last when all he wanted was information about the book.

"I... Did knock some over," he admitted, standing up and walking to the shelf to stall a bit. "I thought I put them all back where they were, which one was it?"

"It was smaller than most of these, unmarked except for a depiction of a heart on the cover. It should have been with the rest of these."

Merlin pretended to look for the book, kneeling down for a better effect. "You knew my mother, right?"

"I did."

"For how long? It's just, I don't really ever remember you, so it must have been a while?"

"That it has. I actually have met you before, but you were so small I'm not surprised you've forgotten."

"And you... Basically got me into this school, right?"

"No. I did suggest you apply, but you were accepted in your own right."

"So Mum must trust you a lot."

"Merlin," Gaius said, and waited until Merlin looked up at him. "What is this about?"

"Why does she trust you?" Merlin asked again. He couldn't think of a way around just admitting the whole story, so he knew he had to take a risk of trusting Gaius, but he wasn't going to do it without at least some confirmation from the man on why he should.

"Your mother and I used to work together at a hospital. I helped her, when I could. She's a very strong woman, but in those days, there were some things that were difficult for a single woman to do."

"So she must not think you're the type to stand by and let an innocent boy die."

"What on earth? Stand up, Merlin, and look at me."

He did. "Cornelius Sigan."

Gaius frowned. "So you have the book?" He sounded surprised, which wasn't what Merlin had expected; he'd assumed Gaius had known he'd taken it all along.

"Cornelius Sigan killed a lot of people," he said. He probably sounded like a total idiot, but it was important to get just one bit of confirmation that Gaius didn't condone all Sigan's actions.

"He was a very evil man," Gaius set, and Merlin sighed enormously in relief.

"I took the book," he explained. Gaius opened his mouth, but Merlin raised a hand to stop his words. "I took it because, well, because I'd seen that heart before."

"Hearts aren't exactly uncommon, Merlin."

"What about blue heart-shaped diamonds? What about blue heart-shaped diamonds that a woman tries to use to _force Arthur's soul_ out of him?"

Gaius sucked in a breath, and suddenly looked very, very old. "You'd better tell me everything," he said, voice strained and harsh.

He gave the most detailed explanation he could, rushed but thorough, because Gaius still looked sceptical and Merlin _knew_ how insane it all sounded. He didn't leave anything out, from the police station to the revelations about the henges and the moon. He didn't explain about his magic, though, because that was an even deeper secret, one he wouldn't reveal if Gaius didn't believe the foundation.

"If this is true," Gaius said when he was done, sitting limp and resigned in one of the chairs they'd been to take tea on. "They must have found the watcher, and we may be unable to stop them. I knew they were trying, but I didn't predict they'd even convince the watcher to help them resurrect Sigan."

"Do you know who the watcher is?" Merlin asked excitedly, grasping hard at the back of the chair. He'd probably missed his last class, he realised, but even if he still had time, he wasn't going.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, boy," Gaius said. "But it will suffice to say he is very, very old, and unless they are somehow stopped, they'll succeed with his help."

"Do you know how?" Merlin felt like his heart would leap through his throat, this was so much more than he'd hoped for.

"I could probably figure it out, but it wouldn't matter. Magic like that can only be stopped with more magic, and there hasn't been anyone powerful enough to fight Cornelius Sigan in nearly a millennium. I'm not sure there's anyone alive who could do more than cheap parlour tricks with the greatest of training and concentration."

"How... How powerful would you have to be?"

"Merlin," Gaius said, looking at him with a hopeful cant to his eyes for the first time since they'd begun the conversation. "Why are you asking me?"

He'd thought about this moment his entire _life_, wondered what the look in their eyes would be before he said it, and after. He'd thought about it so much, in fact, that now the moment had come he couldn't even say it. It meant too much. "I think you know," was all he could say, biting his lip.

"My God, boy. Does anyone else know? You haven't told _anyone_ here, have you?"

He shook his head. "No one ever, just my mum. But -- if Gwen and Arthur and Morgana are going to help me, I'm going to tell them. I won't lie to them about it, not to their faces."

"Arthur didn't tell Uther any of this?"

"He tried, but Uther didn't believe it."

"That's just as well, he wouldn't have reacted well if he had," Gaius said, gaze far away for a moment.

"So you'll help?" Merlin asked. "_Please_, we can't do it without you."

"I don't like it, not one whit, but we've so little time, I don't think there's another option."

"There's not," Merlin declared. "And I can do it, if you just tell me what to do."

\----

He'd stayed so late that he actually missed dinner, too, but as he closed the door to Gaius' quarters behind him, the man bent deep over another book full of writing he'd never seen before -- _spells_, he'd said, actual _spells_ \-- it occurred to him what he had to do.

He had to sprint to catch them all in time, hoping none of them had left early. He saw them right before they would split to head to their rooms, in a small knot, heads together and talking so low he couldn't even hear them when he skidded to a halt right behind Morgana's dark head.

"Merlin," Gwen said, catching him first from her vantage point across the triangle. Morgana and Arthur looked up at him with such similar expressions that he was abruptly reminded that they'd truly grown up together.

"I have -- I have to tell you something," he said, feeling antsy and a bit mad and not sure whether it would help him more to look serious or give a mad, relieved grin he like wanted.

"Okay," Arthur said, looking at him. They all three waited.

"No, no, not here."

He led them down the same path he'd walked alone before, hurrying them along when they kept stopping, confused, to ask where he was taking them. It was long dark, and the half-moon in the sky did little to light the forest after the last lamp post faded into the night.

"If you're trying to lead us into the woods to kill us where no one's around," Morgana said after she stumbled on a tree root and had grabbed Gwen's hand to steady herself, "You should know I don't need a foil to fight."

"It's not that," he promised, spinning back to smile at her. "We're almost there."

It wasn't as far as he typically went, but it was far enough in the darkness, and he didn't want one of them to get hurt wandering the unfamiliar path.

"Okay, okay," he said, turning to stop them and gathering in close. Arthur was looking at him a little like he thought Merlin was a crazy person, a little like he was about to leave, and very impatiently. "I just talked to Gaius and... He knows who the watcher is. He wouldn't tell me--"

"Then why are we _here_," Arthur said. Gwen shushed him, and he looked at her so surprised Merlin wondered if anyone had ever shushed him before in his entire life. He giggled at the thought, high on adrenaline and hope and relief to finally be saying it.

"That's not the important part. The important part is that he thinks he knows what I can do to stop them -- or at least, he'll figure it out."

"What _you_ can do?" Arthur asked, and then, "I still don't know why we're _here_." Gwen looked like she was about to ask a question, too, but Morgana was just watching him, that same probing, intimidating look in her that he imagined from her matches.

"It has to be me because," he began.

And he stopped. He looked at them all again, Arthur's mouth still open to demand something else, Gwen waiting silently and Morgana still looking like she knew something more than he did. As he watched her, her whole face changed.

"Merlin, are you--?" she said, tone like a question but either not quite sure what she was asking or as unable to actually say it as he was. He nodded.

"Is he _what_?" Arthur asked, annoyed.

"Oh my God." Gwen's eyes were wide, but she didn't look angry at all, what he most dreaded.

"_What_," Arthur said again, pitched higher.

"Magic, you idiot!" Morgana exclaimed. "He's magic!" Merlin looked at her. "Sorry," she said, expression sheepish.

"That's ridiculous," Arthur said. "Merlin, what did you--" He met Arthur's eyes, sure his guilty expression said everything he himself had been unable to.

Arthur must have thought so, too, because he stared back, mouth pursed but blank eyed, for a long moment of silence all around. Then he turned around and stalked back the way they'd come. Sort of, at least.

"Arthur!" Merlin called, but he didn't stop, not that Merlin had really been expecting him to. Merlin looked at Gwen and Morgana, to his right. They were surprised, but fine, of course, and Arthur was angry, or hurt, or whatever it was he didn't want Merlin to know, because of course he didn't know how to actually deal with _anything_.

Of course Merlin took off after him.

"You're not even going the right way!" he said when he was close enough to to grab Arthur's sleeve. Arthur's face was shadowed in the dark.

"I think I am," he said flatly.

"Well, you're _not_." He realised with a pang he'd left Gwen and Morgana in the dark with only the hope of an excellent sense of direction to get back. He'd go back for them, if they needed, after he fixed this.

Arthur kept walking, though, and nearly took his eye out on a low branch he barely saw in time. Still kept walking.

"Can't you make some light with your special secret powers," he said, stomping through the crackling layer of dead leaves over the soil.

"Yes," Merlin said. Arthur didn't actually turn around, but he looked over his shoulder at the pale, glowing ball cupped in Merlin's palm, reflecting in his eyes, and waited at least for Merlin to get abreast of him. They walked in silence until they reached the edge of the woods, considerably further from the school than where they'd started. Arthur frowned, then started trudging back up the path. Merlin sighed; apparently he'd have to do it while they went.

"If you were me," Merlin began, glad his legs were actually longer than Arthur's, "what would you have said? If you were me, and I was you and my father didn't even let the teachers at his school _talk_ about magic, and the the only magic I'd seen was someone trying to _kill_ me, and first I said it was magic and then I said I didn't even _believe_ in magic when you tried to ask, and then I was so -- you were so... And you'd never told anyone and your mother had made you swear not to, not ever, but you thought that maybe something was more important than your secret, but you still didn't even know how, and--"

"I think you lost me after your forty-third switched pronoun," Arthur told him, but he stopped and looked at him. "How long?"

"I -- my whole life. Always."

"Why'd you come _here_?"

Merlin laughed, one short, mirthless chuckle of agreement. "It's not like there's a magic school or anything," he said.

"Guess not," Arthur said, actually smiling, just a little. "Just... Leave me alone, for a bit." Merlin nodded; it wasn't what he wanted to do, but if Arthur needed it, then he'd comply, of course. There was still more to be said, like that even if there were a magic school Merlin probably wouldn't go -- he liked doing magic, loved it sometimes, but it wasn't all he wanted to do, to be. Those would have to wait.

He was still standing where Arthur had left him when the girls emerged from the woods, leaves in their hair but in pretty much the exact spot they'd gone in.

\----

He gave Arthur until the next morning, sleeping in Gwen's bed while she squeezed in with Morgana. He'd intended to just use the floor, but she'd smiled and insisted it was hardly a big deal. They'd also very graciously not commented on his abandoning them in the dark and offered to let him sleep at theirs, so in return he'd answered all the questions they'd asked, first hesitantly and then with more confidence. It felt good -- wonderful, even -- to finally discuss it, made it more real and made him feel less set apart. Even if he was still different in some manner, it helped in ways he'd never imagined to know that he had friends who knew and didn't really think any differently of him for it. Arthur aside at the moment, but Merlin hadn't expected any better at first.

He woke up once from one of the dreams, but didn't feel as heavy with dread as usual and was able even alone to fall back to sleep easily. Sometime after dawn he got up to take a piss and decided to just go back. It was strange seeing the campus so empty in daylight, even the timid pale light of early morning, like he was the only one left.

Once he got to the door, he paused, trying to gather quickly an array of responses to whatever Arthur might say. He'd said most of what he could last night -- except, he realised, _I'm sorry_ \-- but he'd still try.

Then it occurred to him that Arthur was probably asleep, anyway, so he told himself to stop being so silly and opened the door.

Arthur _was_ asleep, though at first Merlin had thought he hadn't come back, either, because his bed was empty and he was buried face-down under his blankets and Merlin's own, his blond head barely visible on Merlin's old, lumpy pillow.

Merlin toed off his shoes, not quite sure Arthur would appreciate what was he doing, but if he hadn't wanted to share he should've used his own damn bed. The clock said it was barely past five, which left him with plenty of time for a nap before actual morning.

Arthur was sleeping precariously close to falling backwards off the edge, leaving Merlin just enough room to squirm in next to the wall and under Arthur's outstretched right arm. Arthur didn't wake, just murmured something that was more a voiced sigh than actual words and pulled Merlin in with one strong flex.

The conversation came later, when Merlin's alarm went off like every other morning and Arthur slapped it off. If he was surprised to find Merlin there, he didn't show it. Nor did he say anything, or react much at all save turning back towards him, away from the alarm and everything else, to look at him.

Merlin looked back, half-wishing this could be the sort of thing they could just be manly, manly men about: brood for a while then hit each other or something and be fine, like the time he'd accidentally broken the arm off one of Will's transformers when they were too old for it to really matter but it still had. But he and Arthur didn't have the time for that luxury, and he actually wanted to say what he needed to.

"I am sorry," he said. Arthur blinked and looked evenly at him from under his eyebrows, obviously expecting more, so Merlin stumbled on. "I just... I really haven't ever told anyone before. It's been a secret for so long I don't even have to think about keeping it. I just... Do."

"Morgana?"

"She's just cleverer than the rest of us," Merlin admitted, rueful. "Probably wasn't a conclusion anyone should have drawn from what I actually said."

"No, you weren't making any sense at all," Arthur chastised, but his eyes were lighter. "So... Magic. It's real." He still didn't exactly look right, which Merlin could understand because Arthur's skills at dealing with internal conflict seemed to be approximately zilch, but also because it was contrary to everything Uther Pendragon had taught him. But he was still here, still looking at Merlin from across the bed, and that was a better start than Merlin had ever let himself hope for.

"I think so, at least." Merlin grinned, sighed and let some of the tension out of his shoulders. "But I've never met anyone else, or heard of them, even."

"Looks like it's up to us to make sure you don't have the wrong sort of company," Arthur said. He rolled Merlin onto his back, crawled over his thighs and straightened, pulling off his shirt. Merlin watched it go appreciatively, at least until Arthur dropped it onto his face. The cotton smelled like Arthur, strong and clean. "School first, though. Education for the masses, and all."

He felt that day like everything really _was_ going to be alright, like they were invincible and Cornelius Sigan's crazy, berobed followers would rue the day they ambushed Merlin in the woods, like his friends knew -- _Arthur_ knew -- and no one had called the police or headmasters or counsellors.

Every time Gwen met his eyes at lunch, he smiled so wide he felt his whole face change, until she started laughing nervously and asking if she had something on her face.

"No, no!" he protested. "It's just... I think this is all going to work, Gwen."

"Of course it is, Merlin," and when he looked at her expecting patronisation, falsity, he saw only his own happiness and hope.

\-----

Morgana cornered him later, standing under a tree outside his building after he'd been let free for the weekend. He'd been planning on dropping off his books and heading to Gaius' until dinner, but it was clear from her tight jaw that something important was on her mind.

"You should ask him," she said when he joined her, hunching slightly under the low-hanging branches, "how to destroy the stone."

"The stone?" He honestly hadn't thought that much about what specifically he would be called upon to do; he'd figured Gaius would tell him.

"I think... I think it's the key to stopping them."

"Alright," he agreed. "Did you see something in the book?"

She paused, open-mouthed. "No, I just think it's what we should do. Call it instinct."

"Instinct?" he repeated, half-wondering whether he considered that adequate to base their whole plan of action around.

Her eyes focused over his left shoulder, avoiding his gaze. It was the only display of reluctance he'd ever seen from her. "Well, I--"

"Are we actively _trying_ to be mysterious now?"

Arthur peered at them both, head cocked and one hand keeping a particularly pointy shoot from taking out his eye.

"I've got to see Gaius," Merlin said, so abruptly that it immediately seemed like they were hiding something. He didn't think they were, exactly, but he didn't know _what_ was going on, or why Morgana's talk of instincts made her so evasive.

Arthur must have thought so, too, because his brows drew down and his lips in.

"I'll tell you about it later," Merlin promised, thrusting his bag into Arthur's free arm. "Don't think Gaius likes waiting."

Gaius greeted Morgana's suggestion with a thoughtful pause.

"It might be a good idea," he said finally. "Only the watcher knows for certain how to defeat Sigan, so we'll be operating essentially on instinct ourselves. Unfortunately the best method I can imagine is lightning. There are methods to call it, with spells to control it, of course, but I don't know any of them. And if you tried without the proper focus and training, you'd be just as likely to destroy the person next to you, or yourself."

But he shortly came to another suggestion, some sort of synthesis of spells intended to banish the soul from its vessel and then destroy it before it occupied another body. He put Merlin through a short series of tests, just to ensure he had the discipline to master them.

He replicated some of them later, sitting next to Morgana and a wide-eyed Gwen on the floor of his room. Arthur was still a little standoffish, quiet, but he'd stolen dinner for Merlin from the dining hall so he must've been at least sort of fine. Between bites, Merlin juggled a stack of books, sent them back to their shelf and then lifted the whole thing. This was the hardest part, trying to keep it steady enough that none of the haphazard piles toppled -- it had been epically worse in Gaius' cluttered study. When he'd put the laden shelves down, practically unchanged, Gaius had simply stared, for so long that Merlin started to fidget.

Morgana watched much the same, intent eyes and hand clenched on Gwen's wrist. Merlin turned to Arthur, perched alone on Merlin's bed. He was staring at the now resettled desk, face blank.

He sent a puff of air to ruffle Arthur's hair; Arthur visibly started, turned to look at him. Merlin was surprised by his expression -- what had seemed void from the side seemed straight on to be surprisingly vulnerable, and he found himself immediately smiling back, trying to show that he wanted Arthur to accept it but also that it didn't matter too much -- this didn't change that Arthur had once pelted him with tennis balls until Merlin collapsed to the grass court in surrender; had chased him down a ravine and ripped the band from Merlin's wrist, then left his hand there, unnecessarily; had caught the beaded sweat on Merlin's neck with his open mouth.

Arthur didn't exactly smile back, but he quirked his mouth playfully, the cousin of the face he made when he caught Merlin watching him in class. It was enough to flood Merlin with relief, and enough to make him blush with the memory, duck his head down. When he darted a glance back at Arthur, he was actually smiling -- a little bit of a "hah, made you do it" grin, but a smile all the same.

Apparently all it took was for him to humiliate himself with his own train of thought.

\----

Gaius taught him streams of complicated words, harsh and sibilant and unfamiliar in his mouth. They twisted his tongue, felt like he was chewing something he disliked, but Gaius seemed pleased with his pronunciation. Arthur laughed when he repeated them later and said he looked like there was something stuck in his throat. Merlin was glad for the relief this brought from the tensest weekend he'd ever lived: two full days without the distraction of lessons to draw their thoughts from what they'd be doing the next Friday.

Gaius also pronounced Stonehenge the best candidate, the biggest and most powerful spot ever erected in England, and still one of the most intact. If they were leaning so heavily on the book's ritual, Gaius supposed, it implied they had little or no magic of their own, and were relying on the magic bound up in Sigan's system, so the more they could use their surroundings to focus and amplify the power, the greater their chance of success.

This meant they'd have to leave early on Friday, skip classes and drive most of the day. Arthur had wanted to leave Thursday, but Morgana pointed out that the longer they were missing, the greater the alarm and thus a wider search and a greater likelihood they would be found. If they skipped Friday's lessons, it could be all day before anyone thought something was amiss.

So Merlin sat and watched Monday and Tuesday pass in a blur, only half-aware of school and only half-aware of his fingers twitching under the table, running silently through the spell Gaius had invented, a complicated mash of unrelated sounds he kept messing up, repeating out of order or squashed together. Gaius said he had to get them all just right, or instead of banishing he might magnify, instead of dissolving he might discolour.

Clouds hung ominously all Wednesday and finally broke while he spent lunch in in Gaius' study.  He watched the rain between repetitions, as it grew from a steady patter to an unseasonal downpour and cacophonous thunder. Afternoon Physics was cancelled, something about a tree in the road between their teacher and the school, so he stayed later than he'd intended, working the convoluted mess until Gaius beamed proudly and proclaimed he'd never thought he'd see the day. Merlin smiled back, even the growing knot of cold tension in his stomach no match for the rush of fondness. Somehow in a week, Gaius had become more of a father figure than he'd ever had before in his life.

He braced himself for his dash through the pelting drops, as he had watched other students do through the window all afternoon. He was about to take his first step when he heard someone call his name. Gwen and Morgana were rushing past, holding hands and laughing, completely soaked. He was glad they're happy, even just for a moment; Arthur had spent the past few days growing increasingly silent, drawing into himself with tense shoulders.

The rain wasn't half as much fun without someone else to slosh through the puddles with, and he was still thoroughly drenched when he slams the door of their room. Lightning strikes in time, like magic.

It was dark -- he hadn't switched the lights on yet and the storm blocked the sun from the window. He peeled off his wet clothes, dropping them in a sodden, squelching heap on the floor and climbed into his bed without putting anything else on. His skin was still clammy, hair dripping. His mother would have told him to take a hot shower.

Arthur came in with his tennis whites streaked muddy. Merlin was shocked, thinking he'd somehow spent hours daydreaming and cold, or perhaps been at Gaius' far longer than he thought, but the clock revealed that no, tennis practise had barely started.

"The weather," Arthur explained, pulling his shirt over his head and plopping it down on top of Merlin's clothes. "Courts are too wet to play so Coach had us running, but everyone kept slipping. Think he was worried we'd hurt ourselves."

Probably a valid fear, Merlin thought, turning to watch the rain outside flood over the sidewalks. When he looked back, Arthur was wearing dry pants and standing in the middle of the room. He couldn't have been warm, not in the slightest, but he wasn't making any move to do something about it.

"Come here," Merlin said, unexpectedly fond.

He hadn't even really noticed warming up, but realised it when Arthur burrowed under the blankets and curled around him, absolutely frigid after his cocoon of warmth. Even freezing, though, he was welcome, and Merlin was glad of the solid invasion of Arthur into his thoughts as well as the growing warmth of his limbs, the way his fingertips dipped into the individual grooves of Merlin's spine.

"Are you nervous?" he asked suddenly. He didn't even know which he wanted: for Arthur to be concerned in contemplation of the task they'd set for themselves, or for him to be confident, reassuring.

"Don't be ridiculous," Arthur replied, brash tone belying everything Merlin remembered about what he'd said under the influence of sleepless nights past.

"I am," he admitted.

"About the -- the spell?" Arthur still stumbled a little, danced verbal circles around magic or anything related, but Merlin could understand that -- it was strange even for him to be discussing it like this, and Arthur was trying, at least.

"A bit. We're making a lot of assumptions, you know? What if we're wrong? And we don't really know what we're actually walking into. But there's still not anyone else to rely on."

"No," Arthur agreed. Even if they hadn't made the effort already, Merlin didn't think Arthur would truly consider turning the responsibility over to others. Not when he was already so involved, not when he felt partially responsible for it to begin with.

"We need a plan," Arthur said.

"Tomorrow," Merlin said. "We'll make one." With everyone.

The sky darkened save the flashes of far-off lightning, and Arthur's skin grew more temperate until it was neither cooler nor hotter than his own, until Merlin so was used to the press of him that he couldn't even tell where he ended and Arthur began.

\----

But in the end, no plans at all would have mattered.

 

\----

 

Merlin hoped, curled tense in the backseat of Morgana's car as she sped south, that Gaius would forgive him their obvious manoeuvre to keep him on the grounds. The reasons to leave him behind: his absence would be more suspicious and more indicative of a serious problem than that of four students, if their combined vanishing act were even discovered and connected; his self-professed inability to be of any help; their unwillingness to endanger anyone else, all far outweighed any potential benefits.

 

Even if he had double-checked their information and noticed before tonight that they'd given him the wrong date of the full moon, the mass food-poisoning attack they'd arranged would keep him occupied.

 

It was the only part of their "plan" of loosely connected series of eventualities and contingencies that they could really depend on. So far it seemed to be working; no panicked, angry calls had come yet.

 

He ate something greasy and tasteless, right off the highway, and couldn't even remember when they pulled away where they had eaten. The roads weren't crowded, but they were busy, lots of people going about their ordinary business. He stared absently into the cars they passed, wondering what the drivers, the children in the back, would think of a cult trying to resurrect one of the most dangerous magical figures in Britain's history.

 

Laugh, most likely.

 

\----

 

He'd never given much thought to the part in books where someone says, "If you'd told me a year ago I would be shearing black sheep in the Scottish highlands with my cousin's mailman," or something of the sort. But now he understood. If you'd ever at any point before one month ago told Merlin he'd be running once more through everyone's assigned tasks in all their anticipated possibilities with Arthur Pendragon, he'd – well, he'd probably have done a lot of things. But believing would not have been among them.

 

Seemed he'd learnt his lesson.

 

But that really wasn't what he should dwell on. Not when Arthur was detailing, under fading light, entry points based on a satellite photo he'd printed from the internet and Morgana was thumbing the guard of her _sword_. Another thing he'd never really anticipated – seeing an actual swordfight, even so one-sided as this would probably be. Gaius hadn't mentioned anything about his Sigan-worshipping pseudo-Druids practising sword arts.

 

Arthur had looked on rather covetously when Morgana and Gwen had tested the blades Merlin had clumsily sharpened.

 

Morgana had smirked. "You had your chance, you know, and you quit for football."

 

"I think this is the exception that proves the point fencing is a showy, antiquated display from those who can't master real sports," Arthur had replied archly.

 

Then they'd had to fake interest in the tour group from Amesbury they'd assimilated into, early enough to scope the site out and get a better idea of their surroundings. The car was pulled off the road, far enough that it would be ignored during the day and invisible after dark.

 

For now, though, they were to take two positions, a pair at each of the main highways leading in, and wait until they saw something. Fortunately, both had small forested areas protruding from the manicured fields that made up most of the surrounding terrain, enough to hide in. Text messages would provide regular check-ins and the go signal.

 

He squashed into some shadowy underbrush with Morgana to wait, passed the time by working the spell silently through his mouth. He didn't really like the splitting up part, but he knew it was the best possible way to cover the major entrances and not leave anyone alone.

 

_Nothing_, read their first several exchanges. Back and forth, nothing. The wind blew eerily across the fields and then into the trees, and it was far too silent after the last tourist groups cleared out.

 

He'd half-expected them, based fancifully off a joke Gwen had made, to come in on broomsticks, or even horses, but all the happened was that Arthur and Gwen, from the side closest to the parking lot, sent _They're coming_.

 

And they were, parking cars blatantly on the side of the highway, the occupants slamming doors and walking in a long, robed line.

 

"My god, they look utterly cracked," Morgana observed.

 

Next was crossing the field on the other side of the road, low and silent, to meet near the middle. Then came the only part of the plan Merlin honestly felt ridiculous about -- not the spell, not the swords, just the part where they found some stragglers and pulled an _every movie and TV show ever_ on them by attempting to yank them subtly off the road and steal their kitschy robes, leaving them somehow incapacitated and out of view. Arthur gleefully practised some sort of head-bashing move he'd probably been working on for ages.

 

And there they were: four people stepping into the roadway and following the dwindling line. They were to be late, it seemed.

 

Indeed, they were among the last to join the mass of cloaked figures, all of whom fortunately had the cowls pulled low to obscure much of their faces. They were in greater numbers than before, and had formed a loose circle around the ruined stones, but as a herd backed up and parted around the opening in the monument where the stones had collapsed, because someone was approaching, or perhaps some_thing_, a huge, hulking shape in the drained light.

 

It was --

 

Gwen made a strangled noise of shock, somewhere to his left. He was concerned for a moment she'd given them away, but similar noises were echoing all around them, because --

 

Because next to the same woman who'd led the ceremony before was the biggest bloody creature Merlin had ever seen. But it wasn't only gigantic.

 

It was a dragon.

 

The mismatched pair was followed by others, lugging the same ancient wooden chest Merlin remembered. Several more supported a blond teenager who must have been Allen Jones, watching the silent animal with stark terror. Merlin couldn't exactly blame him -- it had the biggest mouth he'd ever seen, two enormous wings and long claws at the end of each limb. Even its tail looked like a weapon.

 

The woman apparently couldn't resist a bit of gloating and grand-standing, giving a condescending speech about how no one had believed they'd found the stone and communicated with the watcher. But here was proof, it seemed, that they'd done both, and now they could perform the ceremony. Merlin only half-listened, running first through Arthur's carefully constructed plans for one labelled _In Case of Bloody Effing Dragons_, and then trying to ascertain in his own mind how this would change anything. They couldn't speak, everyone around them was listening to the woman like she directly channelled the words of a god. To them, perhaps she did.

 

None of the preparations of before appeared, neither the jumping nor the peel. Either Jones had already undergone them or they'd done away with the rituals altogether.

 

Jones was forced to his knees, held as Arthur had been. The stone heart was brandished, strange words chanted, and this time Merlin waited until the blue swirling light coalesced and began to flow out like a wandering air current.

 

As soon as the stone was dull and empty, he began the spell. He felt it swell and crystallise in his mind, focused it and raised one arm. From this point, he was no longer an invisible facet in their mass -- he was a target, and now it was the task of his friends to protect him until it was done.

 

He didn't see, but was told later how every single one of them held back, afraid to confront the swords wielded by Gwen and Morgana until the woman's shrieked command. But by then Merlin was finished, and Arthur would say later that the dragon's head swung immediately to focus on their group, big, unfamiliar eyes unmoving.

 

Allen Jones, forgotten on the ground, broke from his terrified daze and screamed, scrambled backwards. Merlin thought for a dreadful second he'd failed, but Jones was clearly just a terrified child, not the possessed body of an evil sorcerer.

 

They'd done it.

 

He laughed, almost manic with relief, grabbed Arthur's hand and never wanted to let go. Morgana dropped the sword and pumped one fist victoriously in the air. He knew how she felt, there wasn't any single movement or emotion or word that could capture the swell of triumph in his head, his heart. The not-Druids were milling, yelling, confused, looking en masse to their leader, the woman from the hemp demonstration and the field.

 

She stepped forward, laughing, and then looked up. Her eyes were a deep, uniform black.

 

"I felt you, you know, but I thought it was the dragon. They have such powerful magical signatures," she said, voice at once her own and not, tone amused and condescending but not at all defeated. "Very interesting bit of magic. It worked, I suppose, to protect that boy, but he was a replacement anyway, completely unnecessary." She stepped forward, face cruel and mocking. "It can't actually _stop_ me." She laughed, and the whole gathering circle around them joined in.

 

"Get them," she said, an absent, throwaway order. They surged forward with renewed purpose, and Merlin saw Morgana go for her sword, but it was in the grass, she'd stepped away from it, and they were on her before she could do anything.

 

Arthur yelled as the first reached him, knocked the figure to the ground and swept the feet out from the second. He was trying to reach the woman. Merlin tried, too, reached out and repeated the spell. He didn't know what else to do.

 

She watched him do it, even flicked a finger and stopped two men who tried to grab him. She stopped Arthur, too, waved a hand and he was on the ground.

 

"Arthur!" he cried, mind thick with worry.

 

"I'm fine," he said, face red. "Just... Can't move."

 

"I was curious if it could do anything once I was already in possession," she said. "Seems not." She let the next group get Merlin, pull him closer to face her.

 

"_Merlin_," he heard, a voice deep and grave and urgent. He looked around desperately, wondering if perhaps more help was here despite all their efforts, his and Arthur's and Gwen's and Morgana's, to keep their activities and destination secret. But he recognised no one in the sea of eager cloaked faces. No one's hood was drawn down any longer, so he could see the unmasked expressions of rabid glee.

 

"_Merlin_," it came again. The woman didn't react. Arthur on the ground beside him didn't react. No one else could hear it, and he wondered if he was going crazy before he looked up and saw the dragon looking directly at him.

 

"_Do it, young warlock_." The voice, he realised, was inside his head.

 

"Do what?" he cried. He didn't know how to communicate telepathically.

 

The woman cocked her head at him. "I was going to ask you to join me, and just take that body down there." She gestured dismissively to Arthur. "Seems pleasing enough."

 

He heard a crack and a scream behind him. The woman focused over his left shoulder, and he turned as well.

 

Morgana was looking around wildly, one of the robed figures who'd been holding her -- a woman with dark hair, now singed -- rolling on the ground. She rose to her knees and threw off the dark robe, which smoked in the grass.

 

"Do it again, Merlin!" Morgana said. "Now!"

 

Merlin hadn't done anything.

 

"Interesting," said Sigan-woman. Perhaps just Sigan, now. "Perhaps that one can join me. She seems powerful, as well."

 

"_Time, boy! Time!_." The dragon's mind-voice sounded even more urgent now, or perhaps Merlin was projecting.

 

He'd stopped time once, or slowed it to a point where its passing was unnoticeable. He could have done anything he wanted, he supposed, but it had terrified him more than anything he'd ever done before, and he'd vowed to never do it again.

 

"So your body will do," Sigan said with a smile. "I'll enjoy bending all that power to my own will. Perhaps you'll even put up a fight."

 

"_Now, or your chance is gone!"_."

 

So he did.

 

He hadn't meant to leave the dragon out of the spell. Perhaps it was impervious to his magic. Perhaps it was impervious to all magic. Either way, it watched him intently, while everyone else, Sigan and Morgana and Arthur and the swarm of cult followers, were frozen. He bent to check Arthur, who seemed unhurt.

 

"What are you?"

 

The dragon snorted. "Don't ask stupid questions, boy. Even you can't maintain this for long."

"What do you mean, even me?"

 

"There's a longer tale to this than we can manage now. It seems we may have longer, though. I... Didn't think that would ever happen. You know, I hope, that magic once held a prominent place in the this land?"

 

"Of course."

 

"Very good. So few do. Those times were the golden age of Albion, cooperation between sorcerers and magical creatures and humans. But the humans grew jealous of magic, scared of it, and undertook a campaign to extinguish it. They were, as you know, successful."

 

"Some are even campaigning to remove it from _history_," Merlin interrupted.

 

"I feared as much. In those times, there were many dragons, powerful seers all. But we were hunted and slain, and I retreated to protect my knowledge. I expected to foresee the triumphant return of magic, but all I saw was a further retreat from those golden times. I am not proud of my reaction, which was to withdraw completely from my self-appointed task as protector of magic. As I left magic, it left _me_, as well. I lost my power of sight, and had only my knowledge of spells and the prophecies of the past to remember. You are in them, I believe, though I didn't understand them at the time. But I had lost hope with the sight, so when I was approached to assist in this venture I could see no other way to bring magic back to its rightful place."

 

"So if you're here to help them, why are you talking to me now?"

 

"I have no stake in good or evil, young warlock, but a magical revival led by Cornelius Sigan can only lead to its downfall once again. Your spell, clever though it is, and your power, though if I am correct as to your identity is very significant, will not be enough to defeat him in this form. I am going to tell you something few men have ever known. I believe you will be the only one living. You must use it at the last possible moment, once Sigan thinks he has already won."

 

The words were even more alien than Gaius' spells, but they felt powerful, weighty, even in his mind.

 

"Now, young warlock," the dragon said.

 

Merlin let go of time.

 

It all rushed back: Sigan's delicate female hand raised, evil grin and mocking laugh, Arthur silent and constrained on the ground, Morgana screaming.

 

"Quiet, girl," Sigan ordered.

 

She was.

 

Merlin waited, tense with anticipation and worry for his friends, as Sigan raised the hand again. The hemp woman's black eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed as the blue fog seeped from her mouth like a gentle exhalation.

 

He closed his eyes, let it invade him. It was cold and felt somehow slimy, absolutely evil. He dropped to his knees, wanting to choke, but he had to concentrate on the spell. The ancient words slipped through his mind.

 

"Merlin!" he heard Arthur yell, and then everything went black.

 

\----

 

He didn't wake up suddenly. It was more like the gradual draw from sleep on a late morning, especially since he felt warm, supported, and someone's hand was cupped around his cheek.

 

But then he remembered.

 

He sat up before he'd opened his eyes all the way, and was relieved when he did that he hadn't whacked Arthur straight in the chin. It was nearing dawn, but his eyes still took a moment to adjust.

 

"Did it--" he gasped urgently.

 

But Arthur just said, "Merlin," a little cautious. Merlin realised they all had no idea what had happened, they'd probably just seen him go down.

 

"The stone?" he asked. He didn't really know what he wanted to see to confirm it was all over. He knew Sigan wasn't in _him_, but what _had_ happened?

 

"It's--" Arthur began, but then his gaze dropped to the ground, searching.

 

"Here," said Gwen. She was standing a few meters away, looking at the well-trodden grass with an expression both careful and disgusted.

 

It was lying forgotten amongst the crushed blades, innocuous and swirling with blue essence once again.

 

The relief this time was less all-encompassing than before, perhaps because it had been so swiftly tempered then, but at the same time he knew this time it was _real_. He reached for it.

 

"Merlin, should you--" said Arthur.

 

"It's alright," Merlin said. "It can't hurt me." He hoped they could find something to destroy it totally, but for now he could keep it safe. He wrapped it in someone's forgotten robe.

 

It seemed all the fake druids were gone, leaving only a slightly-scorched wreck of the field around Britain's most well-known heritage site. Even the possessed woman was gone, and he wondered whether she'd been alright to leave herself or if she'd been carted away by her former followers. He didn't much care either way.

 

"How long?" he asked.

 

"Not too long," said Arthur, but his face obviously said _quite long enough_. "That lot cleared out pretty quickly. I think they were scared of you." He smirked, added, "Idiots."

 

"Allen Jones?"

 

"Asleep, actually, in the car. Wanted to call his mum but we didn't think it was a good idea to get directly involved. We'll drive him home, I guess, or to a police station. I don't even remember where he lives any longer.

 

"Me either. What about the dragon?"

 

"It flew away," Morgana told him, like that was exactly what he should have expected if he'd just thought about it. She was swinging the sword absently, face drawn. Had she known before? It seemed they had more to discuss than he'd thought previously. But it would be nice -- great, even -- to not be alone anymore.

 

"It said it would be in touch," said Arthur, derisive twist to his mouth conveying exactly what he thought about communing with _dragons_, of all things.

 

"He was quite excited," Merlin said. "He didn't even hide it very well."

 

"How do you know it was a he?"

 

"His voice, of course," Merlin said, failing in his attempt to not smirk like a prat.

 

"He didn't speak, though." Arthur was looking more put out by the second, and Merlin couldn't resist just a little more messing with him.

 

"Well, first he did telepathically," he explained, tapping the side of his head. "Then I, ah..." He coughed, not sure how to discuss it without sounding like he was bragging. "Kindofstoppedtimeforabit."

 

"Stopped time?" Gwen repeated. "That's... Pretty awesome."

 

"Thanks," Merlin said, hoping he wasn't blushing like a little kid. Judging by Arthur's face, which seemed too light and, well, _fond_ for their previous discussion, he wasn't succeeding.

"Can Morgana do it, too, now?" he asked, looking at her. She'd been staring pointedly at the sun arching from the horizon, spilling pink and orange through the clouds. "Can you?" Arthur repeated. She shrugged.

"We'll find out," Merlin said.

She finally looked up and met his eyes, surprisingly cautious. He smiled, because he knew it all, the relief of knowing finally the source of all the weird unexplainable circumstances in your life, the fear of your own abilities, the sudden barrier keeping you and your secret from everyone else. But he hadn't truly felt that barrier since they'd all found out, and Morgana, well, she didn't need to feel it all.

She smiled back, enough that he knew she understood.

"Back to school?" Gwen suggested. She was idly scratching their first initials into the grass with the absolutely overkill tip of her sword. _GM_ up top, _MA_ below, so they made a square. He thought for in instant that it needed to be destroyed, they couldn't leave a trace, but at the same time, who on earth would connect those? Who would even want to?

"Unless we want to take off the rest of the weekend," said Arthur.

"Get a hotel in London," Morgana suggested.

"Or the beach!" Merlin said. He wouldn't mind running straight into the ocean, clothes and all, ducking under and just flowing with the waves. He laughed, imagining for a second never returning to school. Maybe they could be magic-enabled private detectives. Or they could open a cafe, he'd never tried to cook with magic. Maybe he could predict stock tips.

But maybe they should just go back to school, try to act like nothing had happened and they'd been joyriding for a day. They could finish their education and he could practise magic, maybe teach Morgana. They could go public, set up a school like older times, like the golden days of Albion...

So he said as much, or at least the beginning part. Arthur grinned ruefully at him, then bent to pick up another of the discarded robes.

Those got stuffed in the back of Morgana's car and dumped along the side of a completely random road.

Later he sat though the most epic lecture of his life from an extremely irate Uther Pendragon, who he suddenly did not mind so much. In fact, he had something of an urge to talk back at one particular part where Uther had ignored the rest of them and targeted Arthur directly, but Arthur had apparently, somehow, known, and slid the toes of one shoe right over Merlin's to stop him. It was totally unnoticeable to anyone else, but Merlin took the hint.

The reunion between Allen Jones and his parents was broadcast everywhere and on the cover of every paper. Unsurprisingly, there was no mention of crazy cults or dragons. Even if Jones had lied to them when he'd promised to keep the secret and tried to tell the whole story, Merlin doubted he'd be believed by anyone but conspiracy theorists and the more extreme magic revivalists. They would have their day, he promised, but not when he was still a schoolboy.

They weren't ready yet. But they would be.


End file.
